


Into the Woods

by iwastheclown



Series: Cape Disappointment [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Coping, Emotional Baggage, Explicit Sexual Content, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal is actually a terrible psychiatrist dont @ me, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, M/M, Masturbation, Someone Help Will Graham, Therapy, Unorthodox methods of treatment, but it made me laugh so hard, but sexy times were still had by all, dont be fooled by the summary, i know its specific, one of the commenters said that originally, someone other than hannibal needs to help will graham, suicide TW, this is pretty sad, will is a criminal detective in oregon au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:28:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25370875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwastheclown/pseuds/iwastheclown
Summary: "In short, it will benefit you to answer me best you can. What may seem unnatural right now might help you in leaps and bounds.”Will nodded carefully. “I see your point. Okay.” He waved his hand in between them like he was tossing his reluctance to the wind, still beating the rain against the windows. “Okay. Hit me with it.”“How often do you masturbate?”“Nope.” Will shook his head, stuttering a laugh. “Nope, we’re not going there.”>>A psychiatrist shows up on Will's doorstep and his idea of self-care is a little weird.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Cape Disappointment [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892275
Comments: 39
Kudos: 175





	1. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read the first chapter before 07/29, it's been edited a lot (especially the ending) so some important things are different!

The third time Will ran away he was 16, and out of every place he could’ve chosen to run to he ended up in the woods. Later in hindsight he realized it was a terrible idea, and any number of things could have happened to him. Kidnapped, lost, mauled by a wild animal, abducted by aliens. But at the time he hadn’t been thinking of anything but getting away.

He distinctly remembered lying down on his fleece-lined coat on a soft part of the ground without a single thought in his mind. Some kind of woodpecker had hollowed out his skull, and he slept in that very spot without intending to. One moment he was staring up at the trees and the tar-black shapes they created against the grey sky. Shapes like silhouettes of monsters and bats watching him from above.

The next moment he was opening his eyes to the dawn where a pale, nearly transparent blue reflected the demure sunlight. He could see now that those black creatures were just leaves, fluttering gently in the breeze that had blown Will’s hair over his eyes. Other than that he hadn’t moved an inch. His hands were on his stomach, right where he’d left them when he went to sleep as if he had been embalmed. For minutes he laid there, exploring the thought that this would be the same view he’d have when he died. Whether the thought was to scare or comfort him was unclear.

Something about one day almost fourteen years later reminded him of that night. The same inexplicable peace set in as he turned his house key in the lock, somehow such an alien movement after just a week of being away. He opened the door to the warm, familiar scent of home. Every knick knack and dust mite was a candle.

His dogs were already swarmed around the door, so close together their wagging tails slapped each other. A few of the younger ones rose up on their back paws to jump him. They must have heard him walking up the porch steps and recognized what his footsteps sounded like, their rhythm and where they landed. Even with one foot sounding off-beat.

Will smiled and nudged the door shut with his elbow. “Hey, guys,” he said, and braced his hand on the doorway so he could kneel down without putting too much weight on his left leg. That was his dogs’ signal to move in, several whining, and smell him head to toe to try and figure out where he’d been. They probably couldn’t have guessed. They’d never been there. “Been awhile, huh?” he asked. He reached over them to give every one some attention.

As he was petting their necks and scratching them behind the ears, he searched his living room for the one dog who wasn’t there. The couch Will never used and his red and black plaid blanket draped over the armchair were all where he remembered them last, but the rug where one spot stayed warm and riddled with dog hair nearly every day was empty.

He whistled into the empty room. “Winston,” he called.

There was no answer of slowly padding paws down the hallway or the jingle of a collar to answer him. Will stood up carefully and his army of dogs automatically cleared a space for him to move. Most followed at a distance while he went looking for Winston, prodding their noses confusedly at his left leg that could barely take any of his weight.

Will poked his head into his bedroom just to find his bare but made-up bed that he figured Alana must be responsible for. He only had a fitted sheet and a comforter but Alana had set an extra pillow up by the head to make it look neat. Or maybe to make it seem as if two people slept there.

He continued on to the kitchen and saw everything cleaner than he’d remembered it, but no sign of Winston.

A minute later he was sliding open the glass door connected to his living room. He whistled a few times, only for the swaying high grass and trees to shrug emptily at him. They had nothing to offer. Finally he took his phone and texted Alana. While leaning on the kitchen counter and waiting for his small meal to finish warming up, his phone buzzed with a text back.

‘Are you home? Can you call?’

‘Not right now.’ Will replied. He waited a minute for an answer.

‘When I came over the day before yesterday, he was gone. I looked for him for hours and Jack helped, but we couldn’t find him. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to worry you, so I was planning on telling you today.’

‘Okay, thanks. Don’t worry about it. He’ll come back.’ Will sent that then put his phone on silent and set it by the microwave.

After feeding the dogs, he took his frugal dinner of an apple and some frozen snacks and sat in his living room chair. It was six and the darkness was purple, shutting its heavy eyelids over the dogs sleeping on the hardwood floor and that empty spot on the rug.

Will remembered the night he ran away more vividly than he remembered the day before.

Although the next morning the leaves were little lime-green lanterns bristling over him, Will never told himself he’d been hallucinating the night before. There had indeed been a demon over him, in some form or fashion, and it chose to either ignore him or accept him as a piece of that forest for just that night. For seven or so hours he belonged to the earth. But when he awoke, it was time for him to leave. Will, now content with his place as no more or less important than a bush or a tree, uprooted himself, threw his dirty jacket over his shoulder, and walked the way home.

In his chair, Will closed his eyes as the last beams of the sun hung over the treetops and night was setting in. The trees were unaffected. They never shied away.

When he opened his eyes it wasn’t yet dawn, but it couldn’t have been but a few minutes off. Dim, premature sunlight drifted like smoke over the high grass and through the window panes, a dusty sigh over the carpet. Will could tell he hadn’t slept for nearly enough time by the way his skin was gnawing at him, pleading for more time to rest. But on instinct, he still turned his aching neck to the side and saw a brown shape curled up next to the glass.

He pushed himself to his feet and forgot for a moment, in his daze, that he was half-crippled. Open air snatched him for one breath-taking moment before he caught himself on the arm of his chair just before collapsing. His heart was knocking in his chest, but he was awake now. He figured it wasn’t worth trying to stand again, so he crawled to the door on all fours and slid it open. “Hey,” he whispered.

Winston didn’t hear him. His ears didn’t even twitch, but at the touch of a gentle hand on his back he perked his head up and looked into Will’s eyes. Despite the cataract glowing like a full moon in his dark left eye, the recognition was immediate. His tail wagged excitedly, and Will guided him inside.

He knew he should text Alana just to soothe her concerns he knew were genuine, for all they were worth, but as soon as he had slid the door back shut and relaxed back into his chair he knew there was no getting up for the next few hours. Will took off his shoes, finally, and felt the weight of his dog settling against his ankle. Somehow even the weight he laid on Will’s leg—the way his body simply gave—was old. Will relaxed into the chair cushions, sliding back under sleep’s topsoil, and gave the same way.

**Session One**

Three knocks against the front door awoke Will that afternoon. He did feel better rested than he had the last time he opened his eyes, probably since it was at least noon by the way the world looked outside. Birds chirped lively and fluttered around through the branches. Will raised his sleeve to his face and rubbed his eyes, coming alive to find himself in the exact same position he’d fallen asleep in. The warm spot on his foot was an indication that Winston had moved, but Will wasn’t worried this time.

He could have sworn he’d heard a knock at his door, but at the same time, his dogs were spilling food all over the tile floor in another room and the two sounds were almost indistinguishable. So he stared at the hallway leading to the front door, waiting. A minute later he heard three more knocks.

Will sighed and prepared his muscles to hold his weight when he stood up. It took a while longer than usual, but eventually he hobbled his way over to the front door, all the while thinking of what he might tell Alana. He hadn’t yet had enough time to craft an excuse that would help him worm his way back into his job. He might have to come up with something on the fly. But as he leaned against the wall and opened the door, his mind blanked at the sight of a complete stranger in front of him.

“Good morning,” the man greeted. He wore a half-smile sitting comfortably between politeness and neutrality; it didn’t quite commit either way. “Are you Will Graham?”

“Yeah,” Will said. He looked the man over. Had he known him, it would’ve been obvious. The man’s face was a hard one to miss. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“My name is Dr. Lecter,” the doctor answered. “I work at the Oregon State Hospital and I’ve been assigned as your psychiatrist for the foreseeable future to ensure your recovery.” His eyes glanced to Will’s bad leg, clear from the way he was shifting his weight. “You were released yesterday, I believe.”

Will narrowed his eyes up at him, mouth twitching to tense and release. Suddenly he was all too conscious of his appearance and how he looked like he’d been to hell and back, so he used his free hand to belatedly push his messy brown hair back into some sort of style. “I didn’t think I had a psychiatrist,” he replied.

“I was asked to call you this afternoon, but I have been recently experimenting with an outpatient method where I try to visit my patients in their natural environments, rather than asking them to make the commute to an unfamiliar and, frankly, boring office.” Dr. Lecter smiled, a little fuller that time but still polite, and Will pricked with a little irritation he couldn’t place. It could have been from a number of things and he was too tired to sift through them all.

“I appreciate that,” he said, instead, “but I’m not so keen to be in therapy right now. Or ever, really.” His facial features and eyebrows twitched erratically as they tried to convey his emotions. “I’m not really a therapy kind of guy.”

“I understand, but I and the institute must insist on this, considering all the emotional repercussions of such an experience. Aftercare is too often overlooked.”

Will shook his head, smiling bitterly. His eyes were trained on the maroon tie disappearing into Dr. Lecter’s umber-colored vest, mostly so that he didn’t feel pressured to look up and meet his eyes. “You can’t force me to go to therapy. Not legally.”

“It is covered by your insurance as well.”

Will’s eyebrows went up at this. “It is?”

“Yes.” Dr. Lecter nodded once, then craned his head to see past Will into the house, where a few dogs were crowding a safe distance away from the door. Some had their ears perked curiously and others were poised to defend their territory. “How many dogs do you own?” he asked.

“Seven. Are you allergic?”

“No, I’ve just never seen so many dogs in one house.” Dr. Lecter looked to Will again, his eyes testing some waters between them. “May I come in?” he asked.

Will’s eyes were locked in that gaze, as much as he’d tried to avoid it. Drawing a line between them, it would have been as thin and taut as a tightrope. Will was reluctant to let either of them walk it. But, after a brief deliberation, he shrugged with a resigned sigh and leaned part-way off the door. “Alright.”

He opened his door the rest of the way and Dr. Lecter came in, to the great disturbance of some of the dogs. A few who considered themselves to be the Cerbeuses of the house flattened their ears and most of them just backed up. Will quieted them with kissing noises and “it’s alright, guys” as Dr. Lecter was shutting the door behind them. He looked this way and that, surveying the height of the ceiling above his head and taking in the pine and wood aromas around them. He was unfamiliar with these candles.

“Do—Would you like some coffee?” Will asked. His flat tone gave away how unfamiliar he was with the words.

“No, thank you.” Dr. Lecter knelt down to offer the dogs his hand to sniff and one or two cautiously approached him.

“How does this work?” Will glanced around waiting for something to happen. “Do we just get started or do I have to sign anything…”

“If you’re comfortable we could start the appointment now.” He twisted his head and looked up at Will. “Do you have a sitting area?”

Will nodded and turned toward the living room. On the way he had to let go of his safety wall and struggle to make his way across the open floor, from the front door down the short hallway without using his left leg hardly at all. Dr. Lecter watched his difficulty, neutrally at first, then stepped to his side with his arm outstretched as a handhold. Will waved it away. “I’m fine,” he said, and went on as best he could.

They eventually arrived in the living room and Will sat back down in his armchair again, regretting that he hadn’t taken any other measures to make sure his guest was comfortable. But Dr. Lecter didn’t seem to mind. He settled easily into the environment, perched on the couch with perfect posture like a hawk on his branch. There was another armchair he could have pulled up but it was situated in the corner of the room, intentionally inconvenient, having gone unused for a while. It had been since appointed the dogs’ chair. 

Will still waited for something, but Dr. Lecter was admiring the fireplace and the burnt pieces of wood sitting on the sooty ground as if time was irrelevant. “Do you have any feeling in your leg?” he finally asked.

“A bit,” Will explained. “Maybe 30%.” He watched two dogs hop up in the space next to Dr. Lecter while he petted down the backs of their necks. “I have a cane, I just don't feel like using it. My doctor said it should go back to normal soon, anyway. Lasting partial paralysis after a stroke isn’t unheard of. Nothing to stress over if I keep going to checkups.”

“Are you stressing?”

“It’s not stress. It’s,” Will gestured to a roundish object before him, but nothing manifested between his palms. They fell into his lap, empty. Some silence passed while the birds chirped outside his door. They were far more talkative than either of them.

Will took a big breath and released it, folding his hands and sitting back. “Do these sessions last an hour?”

“Roughly. My schedule is flexible.” Dr. Lecter checked his watch, and it was somewhat lucky he did. Only then did he call Will’s attention to the fact that he hadn’t yet checked the time and couldn’t have known when their hour began or when it would end.

Will eyed him carefully. “What did you say your name was?” he asked.

“Dr. Lecter.”

“First name?”

“Hannibal.” Dr. Lecter paused and then added, “You may call me by that if you wish.”

Will nodded. “Alright. Hannibal.” He tested the name in his mouth. It was strange; acidic.

“Am I your first psychiatrist, Will?” Hannibal asked. He cocked his head to the side and it just aggravated Will’s growing discomfort. As he was twisting his head, he was turning the coarse focus of a microscope. Will had to squirm.

“I had one when I was a teenager.” He shrugged one shoulder, eyes shifting to that side. “It was just for a month or two.”

“What prompted it?”

“I ran away.”

Hannibal nodded, cataloging that information away. “Where did you want to go?”

Will was surprised at himself when he smiled a little. The subversion of the question was pleasantly surprising. “Into the woods,” he answered. He looked over his shoulder as far as he could without twisting his body, out the glass door and at the treeline resting after a short, grassy pasture. In his mind, he vaguely referred to the area as his lawn. In reality, he had no lawn, and yet, the forest surrounding him was all his lawn. Both were equally true.

“That was the third time I ran away, actually,” he explained. “I was in the foster system and the family I was staying with signed me up for therapy after I came back. The first two times I was living in the suburbs with different families so that wasn’t an option; I just went into the city or something. I don’t remember so well.”

“What do you find alluring about the woods?”

There was always a piece of Will’s brain that was tunneling between and under the trees behind his house. At work, buying groceries, filing his taxes, dragging the burden of the civilized and ‘adult’ world, he dispatched a piece of himself and let it run feral in the forest to try and find that rabbit hole where his soul was forged. And the shadows and the tree branches would wrap their arms around him and accept him back into their body any time he needed.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Will answered, in an exhaled breath. “It’s just, peaceful.”

Somewhere in the midst of the session, Will sat up straight. “Shit,” he sighed. “I need to text my friend back. And probably my boss.”

“Where is your phone?”

“In the kitchen, on the counter.” He opened his mouth to ask a question Dr. Lecter had already answered by standing up and pulling his suit jacket together to button it in one graceful swoop. He disappeared and returned a minute later, handing Will his cellphone so Will could open it and read the message he’d preemptively ignored the night before.

‘I’m still really sorry. How are you doing?’ was Alana’s response.

‘I’m alright, thanks. And don’t worry about it. Winston came back this morning and he’s okay, probably just went looking for me.’ Will sent it, then moved onto the next unread message from Jack Crawford.

‘I heard you came home already. I thought Alana was picking you up tomorrow. Are you alright?’

‘I’m okay, thanks. Just decided to come home a day early. How are things at work?’

“I assume you didn’t want the hassle of being escorted home,” Hannibal resumed, when Will turned his phone off and put it faced down on the small table beside him.

“You’re right,” Will replied with a mild nod. He fidgeted his hands in his lap. “Honestly, I just want to be left alone. I need time to, you know.” His eyes were stuck on his thumb as he searched for the word. “Recover.”

“Are you lacking in loneliness?”

Will glanced up, watching the way Hannibal tilted his head, this time forward. That was the fine focus. Will wanted to melt back into the crack of his chair and disappear from the microscope slide. “Sorry?” he asked, at a loss for anything else.

“Loneliness,” Hannibal repeated, as if that was the part Will hadn’t understood. “There’s a chance it is the self-fulfilling problem and solution. In this time of post-injury emotion and physical fragility, it may benefit you to socialize. Not to the point of anxiety or becoming overwhelmed, clearly, but—”

“Fragility?” Will’s eyebrows went up. “Do you see me as fragile?”

“Perhaps fragility is not the best word,” Hannibal corrected. “Sensitivity, rather. And that is not an insult, or a judgement of your character. Emotions seem to affect you very powerfully. They rocket across your facial features with every twinge and throb of subtext that usually goes undetected or unacknowledged. You are in tune with human behavior as much as you are with nature, and your dogs. Yet you seem to live your life outside of your own body. Detached from your own needs and desires.”

Hannibal somehow had the audacity to turn to the side and nonchalantly pet one of Will’s dogs from her head down to the scruff of her neck while he went on. “I believe this has something to do with both your job as a homicide detective and your placement on the autistic spectrum, the first of which I was aware of from your records and the second of which I recognized the signs of, although they have likely gone untested. I don’t think I’m wrong in expecting this has contributed to your self-isolation. Normally I would suggest that loneliness, or rather solitude, would be a fitting solution to bring you back into your own body, but this has clearly not seemed to work in the past.” He glanced around the room, from the empty armchair to the dogs. “You have not invited many people over for what I estimate is quite a while and that has not improved your state of mind. Insanity is repeating the same act and expecting different results.”

Will narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. His stare was scalding and his shoulders stiff. He opened his mouth and paused, not in hesitation but just to take a second more to make the words crystal clear. “You’ve been here _thirty_ minutes,” he stated.

Hannibal put up his open hand, showing it to be empty in some kind of primal surrender. “I don’t mean to imply you can be summed up so succinctly—”

But Will went on. The apology hadn’t reached Hannibal’s eyes or his tone and Will’s words cut so sharp his features twitched and twisted with the sting. “That’s the trouble with coming to a patient’s home, you know,” he snapped. “You have to relinquish some of that control I think you crave. You’re in my territory, now, with my dogs, and my—” he stuttered on more words, his hand going up jerkily in the air, “my couch, my coffee, so you can’t just come in here and flaunt how well you have me figured out, like you can pull me apart with a few words, like you have some kind of authority over me. It’s been thirty _fucking_ minutes. Who the hell do you think you are? Show me some respect.”

“I respect you,” Hannibal replied evenly. Through everything his expression remained stone-solid. It even grew harder. “I respect you enough to be truthful with you.”

“Me too. I respect you enough to tell you you’re a terrible psychiatrist. And you don’t know a goddamn thing about me.” Will sat back, lips pursed at him, only a mild expression of the heat tensed in his stomach.

“I feel sorry for your other patients,” he spat. “I bet they all secretly hate you.”

He didn’t even know that kind of anger still existed in him until he heard it manifested in the slash and burn of his voice. Some of it even came out of nowhere. And he met Hannibal’s eyes. Some satisfaction only fanned that fire when he finally caught a throb or what was either pain or anger or both in the way his mouth tightened. Just slightly; enough for Will to know he was under his skin.

Will could feel the words approaching, a storm brewing miles away. He just watched, in silence, as Hannibal’s eyes swept the room. From the auburn-patterned lamp to the dust around the outlets, and the smudge on the glass doors to the dog hair on Will’s thighs, no detail could escape the scrutiny of his gaze. He gathered it all up and cut it open.

“There is a perfectly accessible fan right here,” Hannibal observed, nodding up. “I assume you have scarves.” Will’s eyes shifted up. “But of course there is a chance it might break through the ceiling. You have an oven but that’s not a commonly used method. Drowning almost never succeeds when you’re conscious, and I imagine they confiscated your personal and police firearms, so that leaves you the most logical option of a knife. I get the impression you are a hunter, so surely you have a switchblade or a dressing knife available, if only the knives in your kitchen. Though it would not be as poetic, it would meet your purposes, and wouldn’t take more than a moment of action. You might perform it here in front of me.” Hannibal nodded to the empty space between them, a mile wide.

When he looked up, he was meeting Will’s fierce stare. He went on anyway, unfettered and even more confident. “On the other hand, I imagine you thought of this while you were attempting the first time. Using your firearm or a knife would have been much more certain ways to ensure your death than overdosing, which leaves time for somebody to find you or for you to have a stroke from the side effects. Which, in fact, somebody did; and you did. You chose over these methods because you wanted a quiet death. There is nothing gentle about cutting your wrists or pulling a trigger. However, lying down and letting your life slip away to the sounds of nature sounds peaceful, even tempting. Even loving.”

Hannibal blinked curiosity and infuriating sympathy into his tar-like eyes. “Don’t you want to feel loved, Will?”

Will was trembling. His face burned like he wanted to cry or yell, and his hands were clenched around each other. The veins popped green lightning over his hands and wrists, the same lightning in his eyes. His jaw was nearly too stiff to talk as he gritted, “Get out.”


	2. Two

Will woke up to another message from Alana that next morning and laid in bed for the next few hours, swaddled in the bright white sea of his comforter. The pressure of Winston’s body, curled up, sat comfortably against his back. He’d spoken to Jack the night before, and the evasiveness had been even more pronounced when they were talking. Alana’s vague texts that morning were the final deciding factor. Will knew it was time he had to take matters into his own hands.

As much as he didn't want to, limping around everywhere the day before had given him an ache in his thigh that morning. So at around noon he took his cane from the trunk of his car and had it next to him while he drove into Salem. A few blocks away from the state police department there was a coffee shop that comped 20% off purchases for any first responder, so most officers took advantage of it nearly every day. It wasn’t a far stretch to assume Alana and Jack would be there that day.

Brewing coffee hung heavy in the air, welcoming him back into familiarity with warm open arms and reminding him how much he had missed it after settling for bland hospital coffee for a week. Still, Will swore he could feel a million eyes on him and his third leg when he stepped in and the entry bell dinged. He pushed it away as paranoia as convincingly as he could and headed toward the booth he, Alana, Jack, sometimes Beverly, and other members of their team had gravitated toward a million times. He and Jack were creatures of habit and Alana would go along with it. The abstract expressionist artwork next to them and the soothing jazz were second nature to him by then.

A minute after he sat down, Damian, one of their regular waiters, walked up to his table. “Good afternoon, Mr. Graham,” he greeted. “Long time no see.”

Will smiled downward and lifted his hand in a wave. “Hi. You too.”

“Where’s the rest of the team?”

“Coming soon, hopefully.”

Damien nodded but he was eyeing the wooden cane propped up against the wall. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Oh.” Will paid it a glance. “Just a minor injury. Thanks.”

He got himself a coffee to start and sat there patiently, listening to the chatter of some voices in the booths around him going uninterrupted by the growling of cocoa bean grinders.

He had planned it well enough, though, that he didn’t have to wait too long until the entry bell rang again. Will looked over his shoulder to see Jack and Alana both entering the restaurant. She was gesturing in front of her and telling him what looked like some kind of joke that his body language indicated he was listening closely to. But both of them stopped when they automatically glanced in the direction of their regular booth and saw Will already sitting there.

The comfort of routine had sedated Will’s anxiety about his ambush plan, but with one look, his senses woke right back up. He wasn’t supposed to be there. But he didn't know what to do now. It was too late to leave and he couldn’t have jumped out the window very graciously with his bad leg. He resorted to a smile that didn’t quite form properly and a wave, just the sheepish rise of his hand off the table. Alana smiled back just as apprehensively while Jack gave him nothing and they made their way over.

Jack stood back and let Alana slide into the booth first, smoothing down her blue dress. “Hey,” she greeted. Her voice was kind but wary, like a babysitter’s sitting down next to the child to ask it what it was playing with. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Will shrugged, eyes down on the table. At a knee-jerk reaction he regressed back to that child. “Just wanted to get out, I guess.”

“That's good.” She nodded. “I bet you've missed this place.”

“Oh, yeah.” Will chuckled and let his eyes wander around the space and the brown, rustic furniture, and the hoyas overhanging the shelves. “I miss the discount. Hospital bills are ridiculous.”

“Jesus, I can imagine.”

Before they could say any more, Jack skipped ahead right to the point. “You’re not thinking of coming back to work now, are you?” he asked.

Will sighed and glanced up to see Jack’s firm frown. He blanked for a convincing argument, but he couldn’t get out of his head the expressions written on their faces the moment they saw him and their conversation immediately died. “What—I mean, what else am I supposed to do?” he asked.

Jack stared at him incredulously. “You’re supposed to take some time off, if the idea ever occurred to you. Give yourself a chance to heal.”

“It _is_ healing for me. No, seriously,” Will stopped them before Alana could interrupt, “I’m bored and I have nothing to distract myself. Work is my self-care.”

“Not when you’re a homicide detective.”

“It still—it gives me a sense of accomplishment,” Will insisted, gesturing to his chest. Then they all glanced up when Damien came by and set Will’s cup of coffee down in front of him, then proceeded to disappear and immediately bring out Alana’s and Jack’s usual drinks as well. The cafe had long memorized their orders.

By the time he left, the atmosphere between them wasn’t as tense and Will nearly thought he was over the safety line. He sipped his coffee in silence and Jack was busy texting someone back. Louis Armstrong crooned in the background and Will locked his gaze and attention on the corner of the room as if that was where the music was concentrated. This was why restaurants played music, Will remembered from reading. It wasn't to create a pleasant ambiance. It was a diversion offered to guests that they could put their attention on, in case they were too nervous to put the attention on each other. The same as serving wine or hors d'oeuvres at a dinner party, to give peoples’ hands something to do. Fidgeting was too obvious.

“So?” Will asked casually. He raised his eyebrows. “What's new?”

But Alana’s eyes read like rippling water as she made ripples in her coffee, stirring her spoon to mix in a few packets of sugar. “This isn’t just something we can write off,” she told him, a bit harder. “Like a bad day or a mistake on the job. This needs time. Lots of time.”

“Don't you think I know that?”

“I don't think you take yourself as seriously as you should.”

“Even if I wanted to put you back on right now, the department wouldn’t allow it,” Jack added. “I could get fired for that. It’s just not going to happen.”

“Alright,” Will admitted, begrudgingly with a bow of his head, “then keep my suspension. Just let me consult you off-the-table.”

Jack cracked a smile. “No,” he said in a breathy laugh. “You know that's not the point.”

Will wondered, with that admission of humor, if he’d found a way to worm himself in between them. So he copied Jack’s grin and leaned in, like he was telling them an inside joke. “Come on. You need me,” he teased. “If I’m gone Salem will be like the wild west.”

Alana let a smile cross her features and then it faded promptly, exposing its underlying ingenuity. “Will,” she stopped him. “I think you should start looking for a therapist.”

Will’s face fell too, and he exhaled, leaning back in his seat. “Technically I have one,” he said. “The hospital automatically assigned a psychiatrist to check up on me.”

“Really? That’s great.”

“Yeah, he’s just fantastic,” Will said dryly with a punctuated chuckle and a jerky raise of his eyebrows. “I need to find another one just about immediately. But—I also need something to do with my life.” He changed his tone back to the earnest insistence he was struggling with before, but it seemed forced now. His heart was too low in his stomach to beat too ferociously. “I need a purpose,” he said.

“Your purpose,” Jack answered straight, “right now, is to take care of yourself.”

Will didn’t find that answer very satisfying. But there was nothing he knew he could say, and he even caught a glimpse of Jack and Alana exchanging a secret look between them Will wasn’t invited into while he was sipping his coffee. Louis Armstrong was a fourth party at their table breaking the ice continuously. When it came down to it, everybody was a stranger.

**Session Two**

As soon as Will got home he was throwing his coat across the dining room chair, then picking up his reading glasses and a John Douglas book from the shelf in his living room. This time he went to the back porch where the sky was grey and opaque, one drop away from tumbling into a storm. His white-backed book acted as a sort of lighthouse.

Hours passed and he lost himself in the case Douglas was detailing. Whenever he read these kinds of profiling books it was easy for him to put himself in the author’s shoes, to the point where he could scratch an itch on his arm and not even realize it was his body moving. His mind was in another skin. His dogs were running and play-fighting in the near distance, but they weren’t his. He relinquished his affiliation with his own body for a precious afternoon.

It was only when something significant in his environment changed that Will glanced up from his beacon of light and fell back into his own world. Car wheels crunched faintly over the gravel road from the other side of his house. At first Will was quieter than the bristling tree leaves, hoping it was just a mistake of his hearing, but when he heard footsteps echoing on the gravel and then ascending up his front porch steps with more certainty, he exhaled from his nose and snapped his book shut. His cane was right next to him, so he could have managed to get up if he’d had a few more seconds, but in making that small amount of noise he had already alerted his guest. The footsteps paused before any knock came, and within moments they were rounding the house.

So Will just sat back again, pulling his book onto his lap to divert his fidgeting, but it wasn’t working very well. He played with the top corner of the page. After some tantalizing moments, the figure of Dr. Lecter emerged from the side of his house, tall and idiosyncratic. “Good afternoon,” he greeted.

Will glanced up at him without moving his head. The top rim of his glasses sliced Hannibal through his chest but the man just wouldn’t die.

Hannibal put up no pretenses. He bowed his head. “I’m sorry for my behavior yesterday. I believe we started off on the wrong foot.”

“I don’t think we did, actually,” Will replied. His eyes drilled a hole into Hannibal’s forehead. “I think you’re a manipulator and you just showed your true colors faster than you intended.” He left it at that, no emotion lining his words, and Hannibal responded, in turn, with none and nothing to excuse himself. His frown stayed neutral while his dark sweater and pants made him pop like a scarecrow against the coal-blue mountains behind him. He stood there, quiet, the same kind of human as a straw man.

“There was a part of you that _wanted_ to see me do it again,” Will went on. “What the hell kind of psychiatrist does that make you?”

“It was a sort of hardness test,” Hannibal admitted. “You proved stronger than I could have anticipated.”

“Can I see your doctor’s ID?”

Hannibal pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket and after a quick moment of digging, found a small laminated card that he handed to Will. Will took it and looked it over. Sure enough, Hannibal’s photo next to an officialization of his position at the Oregon State Hospital chased away some of the uncertainty in his mind. Only some of it.

Finally he nodded to himself, satisfied, and handed it back. “You should throw it away,” he remarked.

“I’m surprised you didn’t report me to my supervisor.”

“I was going to,” Will explained, “but I didn’t feel like making any phone calls. You’re lucky I’m depressed.”

Hannibal slipped the card and his wallet back into his pocket, then folded his hands behind his back again. “May I sit with you?”

“For another session?” Will had reflexively returned to his book, but at this he glanced back up and raised his eyebrows at him.

“I will behave myself this time.”

Part of Will wanted to laugh, but he was too tired. The anticipation in the swaying grass warning him it was about to rain was draining. That was perhaps part of the reason why he didn’t say anything. Fighting it off would have meant he cared enough to put energy toward it. But Will never would have given Hannibal permission out loud, so when he glanced away at the lawn and left him without an answer, Hannibal discerned it himself and pulled out a seat from the table. For a while they said nothing, and spent time simply adjusting to each other’s presences. The exchange of energy was a magnetic field between them.

There was one tree in particular, a Douglas fir, that sat next to Will’s house and stretched its wing-like arms over his chimney. Most of the chirping was coming from the nest hidden somewhere on the ground around it. A few times while they were watching, the father of the nest hopped out of the coverage and twisted his tiny black head back and forth. With his orange breast he was easy to spot picking at the grass.

“What species of bird is that?” Hannibal asked. He didn’t have to point to it; they had the sense their eyes were trained on the same spot.

“A spotted towhee,” Will answered. “Sometimes I’ll get some birdseed and put it in my hair and on my shoulders, then go out to the woods to see if any of them will land on me.” He reprocessed his words after they fell out and pursed his mouth at the corners, nodding sideways to Hannibal. “Analyse that if you want.”

But Hannibal didn’t comment on it. A new question was plaguing him instead. He tilted his head, watching Will’s hair where it fell over his temple and just brushed the collar of his dark green button-up.   
“Why are you so opposed to therapy?” he asked.

“I don’t like having the attention on me. I prefer to be more,” Will held up his open hand and drew it back into his chest, “out of the way.”

“We could start with a diversion.”

Will glanced over his shoulder. “A diversion?”

“Something to make our discussions less confrontational,” Hannibal replied. “Directness proved to be too overwhelming for us last time.” He tried to meet Will’s eyes graciously across the table, but as soon as he even attempted, Will had averted them back down.

His thumb traced a crease in his jeans. “Well, what did you have in mind?”

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

For one reason or another, Will didn’t stop Hannibal from sliding open the glass door to the living room and stepping into his house for the second time, receiving the few excited dogs who came up to him with wagging tails and pointed ears. Winston was curled up on his usual spot on the rug and Hannibal knelt down to pet him gently down his neck to his back. His tail wagged, too, but weakly.

Then they were in the kitchen and Will was leaning on the counter, watching Hannibal like a hawk while the psychiatrist looked through the cupboards for anything they could use to make lunch.

“There’s not much,” Will explained. “I think there’s some chicken in the fridge. Maybe some eggs.”

“I could make us pasta,” Hannibal said, closing the last door with both hands, as if it mattered to him how loud it was.

Will shook his head. “I don’t have any noodles.”

“You have flour, eggs, and salt. That will be enough.”

Hannibal didn’t ask for his help, and Will knew he couldn’t have done much anyway, between his leg and his cooking skills that extended to frozen dinners, one or two easy from-scratch meals, and nothing else. He just watched. While thawing the chicken, Hannibal slid a cutting board out from next to the microwave and rolled his black sweater sleeves up to his elbows. Within a few minutes he had whipped up a ball of dough in a mixing bowl. He worked with it, smoothing out one side with the knife-side of his hand. He pressed his thumbs in the edges like he was massaging it, or playing with clay. This was all to create a well in the middle where he cracked Will’s remaining eggs into the middle, then whisked them with a fork. But after bringing all the bread together in a golden brown ball, he wrapped it up with plastic wrap and let it sit while he worked with the rest of the ingredients.

Will’s fridge had a few different cheeses, and Hannibal prepared them all on the counter beside the rest of his ingredients: the chicken, the last of the milk, and all of one and a half large tomatoes. He went searching through the pantry, too, for some garlic and herb spices. Luckily, Will did have a few garlic cloves. Hannibal minced one up and then returned to the dough when it was ready to be cut into fettuccine.

By then it was raining outside. The drops were so inconsistent they slapped the window over the sink erratically, streaking down the glass. Hannibal worked rapidly and in silence. He was so focused he was a part of the work himself. He was a sheepdog on the constant run, molding his ingredients into the form he envisioned in his head. While the pasta cooked in another pan he combined milk, the minced garlic, an exorbitant amount of butter, and more flour for a white sauce. Once it was ready he added the tomatoes, pasta, and chicken and spiced them all to hell and beyond.

The next thing Will knew, Hannibal was sliding a bowl of chicken and white cheese fettuccine toward him. Hannibal backed it up with a fork, which he acquired from guessing which drawer Will might keep his silverware in. He was right the first time.

Will twirled his fork into the meal and, with a small and meaningless hesitation, he took a few noodles in his mouth. His eyes closed. “That’s incredible,” he muttered.

“Thank you.”

“Where did you learn?” Will asked. He didn’t want to look greedy, but as soon as he’d taken a bite all his hunger crawled out from wherever it’d been hiding and he was digging his fork in again.

“I had some formal training, but most of my experience is self-taught.” Hannibal took a bite of his own portion as well and judged it to himself. “Food, and the process of preparing it, is very sacred to me. It is the art of manifesting a precise shade of emotion into the physical realm. The transference from the mental to the physical is a delicate and precious membrane to permeate.”

They ate for a while in silence. Rain was drumming harder on the window with every minute and showering over the roof. Its echo diffused throughout every room.

Will didn’t remember time existed until the numbers on his microwave caught his attention. “Does that one hour limit stand now?” he asked.

“You are my last appointment for the day, so it has no bearing.”

“Your three o’clock appointment is your last one?”

Thoughts simmered in the broth of the rainstorm and the dim, lonely light on the ceiling. Eventually, when they coalesced, Hannibal replied, “I was suspended until recently. They’re easing me back into the routine gradually while some of my coworkers have adopted my former patients.”

Will smiled a little, sensing an open door. “What’d you get suspended for?” he asked.

“I have a physical confrontation with a patient and although I didn’t initiate it, I did allow it to happen,” Hannibal answered, as casually as if he was asking about the wallpaper.

Will furrowed his eyebrows down at his bowl. His lunch was very nearly gone. “That’s pretty vague,” he said. “What do you mean by a physical confrontation? They attacked you?”

“In a fashion.”

“What kind of fashion?”

“A sexual fashion.”

Will’s eyebrows went up. “Oh,” he muttered. He raised the paper towel he’d torn from the roll and wiped the edge of his mouth, slowly backing away from the mess he’d unpacked by accident. “Okay.”

“Have I made you uncomfortable?”

Will smiled a little, unintentionally. Something about the clinical lack of variation in Hannibal’s tone came off like an alien conducting a study on human emotion. “A little,” he said.

“I apologize.”

Will dropped his fork into the bowl and set it aside. “It’s okay.”

“Do you have a partner?” Hannibal asked.

Will shook his head, hand resting on his forearm as he leaned his hip against the counter-edge. Shadows from the tree leaves overhanging one window passed over him. It was only four, but the sky gave the impression it was as late as seven or eight. “No,” he said, “not now.”

“But in the past?”

“I almost did. Sort of.” Will opened his mouth then took it back, hesitating, and shifted his position a little bit. “For a long time I had feelings for my coworker Alana—I’m a homicide detective, as you know, and we’re partners. But I’m,” he chuckled tensely, “not so great at the whole romantic partnership idea. I did end up telling Alana my feelings, though, and she said she liked me too but that it wasn’t a good idea to get involved while we were working together. Things were strange after that and she started feeling uncomfortable around me. I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable so I stopped talking to her and I think she assumed I was angry at her so she stopped talking to me, and we just grew apart. Then one afternoon she came over for something work-related and we kissed. Spontaneously. But she told me she still didn’t think we should be in a relationship because I wasn’t so stable at the time, and that we, quote, ‘both needed to sort some things out first.’ She started not talking to me as often; making excuses for why she couldn’t go to this or that. I got the idea and backed off. She’s dating someone else now.” He shrugged, but with his frown it came off weak.

Hannibal nodded slowly and set his empty bowl aside. “I can see why that would be hurtful.”

“I don’t want to be _that_ guy. You know, if she doesn’t want to see it through that badly, I don't want to give her a hard time about it.”

“Is that what pains you?” Will glanced up at Hannibal, asking with his eyes for elaboration. “You believe she didn’t love you enough to help you through what you were going through. Even as a friend, she indicated she wanted to distance your relationship because you were not fit for it.”

Will shook his head. “She just didn’t want to waste her time.”

“In my opinion, the strongest love occurs when you want to waste your time on something you know is destined to fail. It’s about who will go to hell with you.”

“You ascribe to a pretty destructive form of love.” Will raised one eyebrow in emphasis. “If it's love at all, and not just self-loathing coated with a thin layer of infatuation.

“Have you had a partner before you’re drawing on experience with?”

“No,” Will admitted. “I’ve never had a girlfriend.”

“Are you a virgin?”

Will laughed. “Too direct.” He punctuated the end of that conversation when he picked up his cane and started making his way to the living room. It was getting easier to use the third leg every time he took it up, and this time he didn’t stumble too hard on the step down from the kitchen to the living room.

Hannibal was close behind, watching Will’s every move in case he needed to catch him. “It’s a relevant question,” he explained. “Physical intimacy is vital to the human experience.”

“I’m not a physical touch kind of guy. It’s one of the lowest of my love languages.” Will turned steadily and settled back in his armchair. One of his dogs rushed to his side, just to sniff his pant leg and fingertips to see if he had any food left. Will rubbed him on the head and showed him his empty hand. “Emotional intimacy is more important, in my opinion,” he said.

“Indeed it is, but I think you might underestimate the importance of the physical when it comes to feeling loved.” Hannibal sat across from him on the couch and a burst of lightning flashed over his face. He had another question written on there, too, and the wrinkles beside his mouth were poised to help voice it, even while he bit back a sound. Will just sat there waiting for it, doubtful he wanted to know.

“I can sense you’re uncomfortable with this line of conversation,” Hannibal observed instead.

“Can’t possibly see where you’d get that idea.”

“You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to, but you are not the first suicidal patient I’ve counseled. And although everybody needs something different out of their psychiatrist, many patients do share certain similarities I’ve picked up over time. In short, it will benefit you to answer me best you can. What may seem unnatural right now might help you in leaps and bounds.”

Will nodded carefully. “I see your point.” He waved his hand in between them like he was tossing his reluctance to the wind, still beating the rain against the windows. “Okay. Hit me with it.”

“How often do you masturbate?”

“Nope.” Will shook his head, stuttering a laugh. “Nope, we’re not going there.”

Hannibal was smiling, leaning forward a few inches more than normal. It was such a straight line across the coffee table from his eyes to Will’s he could shoot an arrow through it. “I thought we were establishing a sense of trust between us.”

“I don’t know if we’re there yet. And even if we were, I don’t even discuss that subject with myself.” Will put a hand on his chest, right over his erratic heart. “Of course I’m not going to talk about that with a stranger. Let alone somebody who was—who was baiting me to commit suicide yesterday. Somehow we keep glossing over that.”

“Don’t think of me as a person. Think of me as…” Hannibal’s eyes wandered around the room, and as another roll of thunder shook the woods, they focused on two of Will’s dogs curled up in the corner on a heated blanket. “Think of me as one of your dogs,” he finished. “I am but a reflection of yourself. I give no judgement, and even through whatever dark, insecure, undeveloped, or undesirable sides you may show of yourself, my opinion of you stays the same. Tell me to stand down or to heel and I will do so.”

Will had his chin in his palm as he looked from Hannibal to his dogs and tried to meld them into one image. He started to nod. “I can work with that,” he said.

Hannibal looked pleased when he sat back into the couch, adjusting the pillow behind him the right way so he could cross his legs and plant himself there attentively. His ears were perked and his tail wagged a little. “How often?”

Will wrung his hands, shrugging. “Well, I don’t—keep track or anything. But it’s not often. Twice a month, maybe, give or take.”

“That’s quite a bit less than most men your age.”

“No doubt, but it’s just not something I’m comfortable with. It feels awkward.”

“In what way?”

“In, like, as if I was with a partner.” Will licked his lips and thought back. The patterns on his rug, igniting occasionally in the lightning, replayed his memory for him. “Awkward like when I was kissing Alana. It wasn’t my first kiss or anything but it still didn’t come naturally to me because I don’t know my body any better than hers. I guess I’ve just never been that acquainted with the sexual side of myself when it comes to, you know,” he nodded, waving his hand in a circle, “genitals. It’s like I’m touching a different person. And I hate touching people.”

“Did you hate touching Alana?”

“No.” Will laughed, then wiped his mouth. “But I never intended to have sex with her. It was just a kiss. Romantic, but not sexual, if you know what I mean.”

Hannibal nodded as the pieces started to come together. Will had torn himself up so much that collecting all the threads and placing them back together in what his original mind and thought process had been would be a lengthy process. But it certainly made a clever pattern. “The romantic and the sexual are strictly divided for you,” he synthesized.

“Exactly.”

“And you have had persons of romantic interest before, such as Alana. I’m assuming she wasn’t the first.” Will’s lack of objection confirmed this for him. “And she was not necessarily sexual, though it could be simply because you haven’t explored that notion. But have you met persons of purely sexual interest before, divorced from the romantic?”

“That has yet to come,” Will said, smiling to himself at the unlikeliness of the idea. “It’s not that I’m not attracted to women. I am. It's just never been.. overwhelming, like I hear people talk about how it can be. Never enough for me to want to pursue anything.”

“When you do masturbate,” Hannibal began, and Will’s face fell, “how does it go? Walk me through it.”

Will sat there for a little while with his hand over his mouth, feeling the bristles of a budding beard on his jaw that he had yet to shave, thinking about if he even wanted to answer the question. He knew he didn’t have to, but there was no doubt Hannibal’s nose was leading them in the right direction. Will had suspected therapy to be a few sessions of beating around the bush with “tell me about your childhood” and “tell me what this inkblot looks like,” and though Will’s childhood was certainly rife with important issues, they had approached the crux of the issue far quicker than he was prepared for.

Eventually he inhaled and prepared himself, mentally, to say, “I think I can answer that but I need a drink of water or something. My throat’s pretty dry.”

“Certainly.” Hannibal stood up and turned the corner to the kitchen. Knocking cupboards and the clink of two glasses rang like bells in the back of Will’s mind while he got all his ducks in a row. All the bells struck midnight; time for him to open a part of himself he’d never shown anyone before. His heart beat completely out of time of the wind throwing rain sheets over his roof. He wasn’t used to the two being so out of sync.

Inevitably, Hannibal came back with two glasses of ice water for them. He put one on Will’s coaster beside him and took the other back to his seat. By the time he was settled, Will had braced himself enough that he could begin.

“I only do it when it’s absolutely impossible for me to ignore it,” Will said, voice cracking a little. He cleared his throat and had a sip of water. “I mean, when I really can’t concentrate and my body is at the end of its rope. So I sit down with my computer and I go to a site, and just look at whatever videos they have featured. Most of them are disgusting, honestly. They just feel exploitative and disrespectful to the act of sex. The amateur videos are much better. When I find one that’s okay I get some lotion, and take care of it as quickly as possible. Then clean up, close the browser, and I’m good for the next month or so. Simple as that, really.”

“You see it as equatable to taking out the garbage,” Hannibal observed.

His lack of emotion, positive or negative, actually made Will more comfortable to go on. “I know it technically feels good,” he said, “but that’s all just physical. There’s nothing emotionally enjoyable about it. Sex, I understand. But masturbation is just a physical requirement of our bodies to maintain reproductive homeostasis and get our dopamine fix.”

“It is that as well, but while sex is a bonding activity, masturbation is exploratory,” Hannibal explained smoothly. He tilted his head to the side like the angle would help him look deeper. “Of course orgasms do release oxytocin and endorphins that relieve stress in a purely physical fashion, but sex is not constrained strictly to the body. There is a side of our minds as well that decides what we are aroused by, what we crave, and what quells that universal desire for excitement; however frightening or macabre it may be. But whether we choose to embrace or shy away from it, there is no way to cut it out.”

Will drew his lips in a thin line and thought this over. “I see what you mean. I do.”

Hannibal smiled, sensing Will’s stubborn reluctance and the blockade it was steadily holding. “I’m going to give you some homework, tonight,” he said, and already Will was exhaling and hanging his head with a chuckle. “Give yourself ten minutes.”

“Ten?” Will repeated.

“Ten. As a guideline, not a rule. Your biggest challenge is to let yourself enjoy it. Take that time tonight or tomorrow morning to set aside your inhibitions and shame, and revel in the exploration. Simply do what your body asks of you. Will?”

Will’s attention snapped back up with the sound of his name in Hannibal’s mouth, and he looked from the blanket draped over his couch arm to his therapist’s eyes. His body was beginning to register that he was going to accept this assignment, and a part of him was rising—literally rising to the challenge. Something stirred underneath his skin. His jaw set awkwardly, nodding in response to Hannibal’s question before he realized it wasn’t a question. “Yeah?” he said.

“Will you do this?” Hannibal asked.

“I’ll do my best. No promises.”

“Of course,” he assured. “Only promise that you will try. It is unfortunate that you view your body so dismissively. Be tender with yourself, Will.”

After they completed their session, Will walked Dr. Lecter to the front door and his heart was still running in place. By that time it was about five, and the storm had quieted temporarily to a drizzle. Waterdrops that hung on the leaves were still dripping onto his roof and mimicking a light rain.

With some effort Will made his way back to his bedroom with his glass of water and took up the John Douglas book again. Hours passed against the open curtains of his room, drawing dark blue patterns on his white comforter that he combated with the small yellow light of his lamp. He was lying on his side, half-consumed in the small print of his book when his eyes wandered to his alarm clock that read half-past eight.

At the hospital he’d gotten into the habit of sleeping at 10 or earlier, and with nothing better to do he was planning on keeping up that schedule. Hopefully soon he would have a reason to stay up at all. Alana was supposed to come over the next day for dinner, and he planned to wear her down a little more to get a look-in into a new case. Even knowing some basic details would get him a foot in the door. But until then, his exhaustion was scheduled to arrive in an hour or so.

Will put the book down and got up to brush his teeth and make sure all his dogs were alright and not wanting for any food. Then he slipped back into bed and reopened his book. The rain was starting up again. Drops clinging to the window panes gained speed and streamed down in little rivers. Thunder rumbled in the dark blue distance, signaling the arrival of a second storm.

An intruder slipped its way through Will’s guards, planting a mine in his mind, and then fled. _What was Hannibal doing right now?_

He flicked the idea away with a click of his tongue. Hannibal was probably going to bed, too, or reading, or doing some late-night work to the light of his study. Most likely he lived alone; Will hadn’t seen a ring on his finger and didn’t figure him for a roommate type. He could also venture to assume, judging by what bits and pieces of his personality he’d caught, that Hannibal probably had a window by him, too, and was watching the raindrops race down the glass just like Will was now. He seemed like the kind of person to stay up late. But although Will dismissed the idea easily, the mine was already planted. He couldn’t get it out without blowing it up, and only God knew what would happen if he stepped on it. What would come out.

Will looked at the time again. Nine-thirty. The elephant in his room wasn’t shrinking any, and it was getting harder to ignore with every minute the lightning crackled brighter outside his window and painted the shadows in white. Finally, when it was all too much, he bit the bullet and sat up. He scooped up his laptop propped against his bed, setting it on his unparalyzed thigh and pulling up an incognito tab.

Every other time he had done this, starting was always the most difficult part. It was a fight of finding a catalyst big enough to motivate him to start touching himself, against all the discomfort tugging his hand back to his side. But this time, for some reason, he was hard by the time the site had loaded. The anticipation had primed him during those hours he’d let it marinate in his subconscious, so all the adrenaline went straight down.

Will started off tentatively by just tugging on the head, over his underwear, and the unfamiliar pleasure seeped in reluctantly. The video he’d picked wasn’t that bad. It was of a man and woman who in real life were a couple, and therefore put a dose of authenticity into their sex. After a minute of affirming that he could trust this video, he put some lotion on his palm and fit it into the slit of his boxers.

Will always tried to find some element of the video to lose himself in. This time, something about the way the woman’s lips parted around her fiance’s length was both aesthetically and sexually pleasing, and Will traced that shape with his eyes over and over as he took ahead of himself and began stroking gently. But it was to little avail. He was far too aware of the way his own hand felt.

It did occur to Will that part of the reason why he couldn’t lose himself in this was because the movements themselves were awkward. Only doing this about twelve times a year, he knew instinctively how to roll his hand and massage the sensitive parts, but it was never a smooth movement. Always, something in the back of his mind was tugging back on the reigns.

Will skipped to the actual sex and tried this time taking his erection out of his boxers, half-hard and still hidden under the blanket. That didn’t quite work, either. He glanced at the time and only three minutes had passed.

His eyes darted around his room as if there was someone there that could possibly see him or catch him in the act. Of course, seeing no one, he turned up the volume a few notches to hear the woman’s quiet, shaking moans in time with the slow thrust of her partner’s hips. That did tease out a little of that feeling he was looking for. Will’s eyes wandered the woman’s body, bent over doggy-style. Her eyes were shut and her mouth hung open. When her fiance thrusted faster, she bent back and raised her ass a little for him, begging for more. That definitely made Will’s hand quicken over himself.

Perhaps this was what Hannibal was talking about, he thought. He might be able to enjoy observing the people in the video and deducing the dynamic of their relationship from how their bodies interacted, if it turned him on as much as it invigorated an academic interest in him. He chuckled a little to himself, twisting his fist over the head in particular and even evoking a sigh from himself that he didn’t mean to make. But it still wasn’t overpowering to the point where he couldn’t have held it back if he tried. Will looked at the time and saw he had about five minutes left.

He went back to the woman in the video, who was now on her back with her legs wide spread open, giving the camera a full view of her vagina and the shaft driving into her. She was in absolute bliss, even being so exposed and visibly desperate. Or maybe that was why she was enjoying it so much. The pleasure suddenly spiked to a boil and Will moaned, rubbing his thumb over the tip. And promptly, hearing his own voice, it fell completely flat. Not only flat, but convex.

Will sighed and closed his eyes like windshield wipers pushing the rain away. He had four minutes left, he told himself, but his erection was already growing soft. The way Hannibal had phrased it, he could be spending ten minutes in another dimension, but he was still firmly planted in this one. Through all of this, he hadn’t even taken one look at his erection.

And at that thought, Will took his hand off himself and closed the browser window. Whatever, he thought, as he exhaled and relief flooded his chest. He had already fulfilled his promise.

He washed his hands in the bathroom, and by the time he came back, Winston was already sitting beside the bed waiting to be helped up. His black eyes, as wide open as they were deep, looked at Will like he was the only human alive. A cataract was well-developed in one of them. And even though Will wasn’t much healthier himself, he lifted his dog up the best he could and set him at the foot of his bed, where Winston curled up and went to sleep.

**Session Three**

Will woke up around noon to several of his dogs lying around him like guards. He wasn’t too motivated to do anything but stare up at the ceiling until one or two of them got up and he had enough room to slip out of bed and make himself a pot of coffee.

Hannibal came over around three again, in a three-piece suit Will hadn’t seen before, to which he removed the top jacket and set it up on the coat hanger by the door. Will offered him some coffee and he accepted, graciously, before they transitioned to the living room again.

Things started to be settling into a normal routine and Will was grateful for it. They both took about five minutes to sip their coffees in silence, listening to the birds chirping over the raindrops glittering in the sunlight. It was too humid that day to be outside.

Hannibal started their discussion off with a calm, “How was your sleep last night?”

“Alright,” Will answered offhandedly. “A bit restless. I kept waking up, but I still feel well-rested.”

“Did you have any dreams?”

Will shook his head. “No, it was just a constant state of rest. I was bathing in a sea of black. I was covered with tar,” he swiped his open palm over his face, “head to toe. But I kept rising up, into my room, only to be dunked back in again.”

Hannibal nodded while a piece of him lived and breathed in Will’s words, a kind of barnacle. “Nights like that can be cathartic, when they’re not too frequent.” Will had to wonder, watching him and how he crossed one leg over the other, how his posture was so perfect. In fact, all of Hannibal’s body seemed to be constantly in one state, as if he was fully in control of every twitch and reflex under the sun he could muster. Will usually felt like an arm and a leg were in different states, and his head on an entirely different plane of existence. Hannibal was unified.

Another silence stepped between them, lasting until Will had finished his coffee and set it down on the coaster.

Hannibal must have been waiting for the opportunity to speak again, because almost immediately after he asked, “Did you do your assignment last night?”

Will smiled in a thin line, shoulders shaking in a laugh that didn’t manifest. He was looking away at his fireplace, so Hannibal replied for him, “I’m supposing that’s a no.”

“I tried,” Will promised, with a raise of his eyebrows for emphasis. He stared intensely down at the floor with his hands clasped. “I really did. I hit the six minute mark, but the thing about trying to make it last for so long is that that gives me more time to overthink everything. I was doing alright but I was never absorbed in it to the point where my mind wasn’t going in four different directions at once—which it almost always is. I realized I wasn’t even…” He trailed off, on the edge of elaborating when the memory didn’t quite translate into sounds his mouth was accustomed to making.

“Even?” Hannibal prompted. His ears were perked again.

“Nevermind.” Will shook his head. “That’s it. I just couldn’t finish.”

“I’d like to hear the finished thought, at least.”

“It sounds awkward if I phrase it out loud.”

“That’s alright,” Hannibal replied simply.

Will clicked his tongue against his mouth and sat back, dipping back into the memory. Inevitably he started thinking about that woman and how receptive she had been to be so violated. Not only in front of her lover, but in front of a camera and hundreds of thousands of strangers. Remembering the way her eyes rolled back sent a flurry of both excitement and fear in Will, which, surprisingly, were not a bad mix.

Hannibal was always crossing his legs, but unfortunately Will couldn’t do the same to hide the erection he was developing from thinking about that woman. His shirt was tucked into his belt, too, so the best he could do was fold his wrists over his crotch as naturally as possible.

“I was doing it under the covers,” Will finally mustered. “I hadn’t even looked at myself the entire time, and when I realized this, everything sort of unraveled. Once I had to acknowledge what I was doing it became not exciting anymore.”

“When you’re ignoring yourself, it’s arousing?”

“Exactly. I don’t like being in my own body. Honestly, touching someone else might actually be easier than getting myself off.”

“What about someone else touching you?”

Will’s eyebrows went up and his throat swelled a little bit with his heartbeat. He inhaled deeply while he shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never gotten to that point with anyone,” he admitted. “Maybe it would work and maybe it would be worse.”

“You say you want to feel loved,” Hannibal recalled, leaning forward to set his coffee on the table then fold his hands back in his lap. “Perhaps it would help.”

“Well, you said that, actually.” Will’s mouth twitched in a smile.

“But you didn’t deny it.”

“No, I told you to get out of my house, ‘cause that was after you were gaslighting me to kill myself.”

“Of course, and you were justified in that.” Hannibal bowed his head in another apology. “But regardless, this seems to be the underlying problem. Your insecurity in physical and emotional intimacy with others is, at root, a problem with your insecurity in loving yourself. Both physically and emotionally.”

“And that’s why you asked me to try masturbating,” Will said, nodding. “Yeah, I got that idea.”

“However, it’s a two-way street. You can target problems stemming within the self through your relationships with others just as you can solve interpersonal issues by working on the self.” Will was processing this, staring at Hannibal with pursed lips as the doctor rolled the cuffs of his white shirt sleeves up to his forearms, though Will couldn’t discern why. He did so so methodically it looked like a surgical operation.

“Okay,” Will replied steadily, eyes on Hannibal’s wrists. “So you’re saying I should find a sexual partner to help me feel more comfortable with myself physically, which will then translate into self-love, which will then make me a happier person.”

“Precisely.” Hannibal was done with one arm and moving to the other.

“Not to rain on your psychoanalyst’s parade, but that seems a little unlikely right now. The only woman I’m close to at all is Alana and she’s taken, not to mention not interested, and I can’t see myself going on Tinder or anything looking for a one-night stand.”

“Of course not. It should be with somebody you trust. Opening yourself up to someone who doesn’t value your feelings would be counterproductive to our purposes.”

“Right.” Will’s phone buzzed on the table next to him and he turned it up to see the text. It was from Alana. ‘Do you need groceries or anything before I come over? It’ll be around 6 if that’s okay.’

He texted her back as he saw Hannibal stand up out of the corner of his eye. He’d offered him the rest of the coffee pot if he wanted it, so he assumed that’s where he was going. Meanwhile he texted back: ‘That’s fine, and no I’m okay. I was planning on going to the store tomorrow and not having food will motivate me to go lol.’

Once he’d finished he set his phone back down on the table, and when he looked up, his heart shot into his throat. Hannibal was settling down sideways on the arm of Will’s chair, close enough for his hip to brush Will’s shoulder. His eyes wandered down Will’s body to his lap. That was when Will realized his hands had been busy and had abandoned their post guarding his crotch. They returned immediately, but Hannibal gently grasped one of his wrists and pulled it away.

“What are you doing?” Will asked, throat dry.

“Haven’t we established a sense of trust between us?” Hannibal replied, far more impassively than he had any right to.

Simply too frozen to react, Will let his hand be guided to rest on his thigh instead of moving it back like he should have. “What?” he asked. His brain couldn’t register anything else. It didn't matter if he did. Hannibal was already pulling his belt apart, and unclipping it with a slide of his finger.

Will watched it like he was powerless to stop it, but his erection was throbbing madly. “What are you doing?” he breathed, again.

The last step was for Hannibal to pop the button open on Will’s jeans and pull the zipper down. “Relax,” he whispered, raising his hand to his mouth so he could wet it. He parted the flaps with his fingers and his hand ventured inside. The clink of the zipper on the metal teeth was tantalizing. “Let me help you.”

“Don’t.” The word fell so quietly off of Will’s tongue it was barely there. Hannibal slid under the waistband of Will’s underwear and grasped his thick shaft all at once. It was the first time Will had ever been faced with the sensation of a foreign hand on the most sensitive flesh on his body. It stole the air right out of his lungs and he gasped something breathless.

Hannibal’s eyes were trained right where his hand disappeared into Will’s pants while he rubbed his thumb slowly over the head and in the slit. The waves of shivers it sent rippling up Will’s body were more than he knew how to handle. His mouth dropped open, not of his own accord. His eyes fluttered shut.

“What…” but the thought dissolved into a sea of nerves. Hannibal reached in deeper and freed the erection to the open air and the chill circulating in the room. There he had more room to develop a more frequent stroking motion that set Will’s skin on fire.

“Oh,” Will stuttered. His head fell back, resting on the back of his chair, and he melted into the sensation of Hannibal’s hand twisting his erection with a grip so perfectly tight in all the right places. “Oh my God. You…”

“Don’t think about me; I’m not here right now.” Hannibal changed up his rhythm just a little so he was performing a scooping motion.

It hit just right. Will buckled at the waist and stuttered a moan that escaped him involuntarily. “No,” he gasped. “Fuck. Fuck.” Hannibal sped up his hand even more, keeping the same rhythm and tightening his grip in pulses when he swiped over the head. Will thought briefly that Hannibal was far too good at this, and something about that really bothered him, but the thought blew out of Will’s head as quickly as it appeared. All he ever wanted to feel was that hand on his cock and the cum rising in his balls, aching to be released.

Hannibal sensed this from the way Will throbbed in his palm and he returned to his rhythm of twisting over the head, just at the right rhythm to make Will’s hands clench by his sides and his good leg twitch.

“God,” Will breathed. His head rested back against the armchair again, eyes closed, but it didn’t even register how openly desperate he looked, or how flushed his face was. He was too lost to care. “God, I’m close.”

“Would you like this to last longer?” Hannibal murmured, the voice fresh and new in Will’s ears.

“No,” Will shook his head frantically. The hand stayed quick on him and pushed him rapidly to the edge. “No, I—I need to come.”

“I know you do.” Hannibal’s fist bobbed in tiny, concentrated movements over the head. “Go ahead.”

Will choked on nothing. He managed a broken “fuck” before the world folded upon itself and he came. Like somebody had stabbed him in the gut, he hunched over. He couldn’t speak in anything but chopped up syllables, carried in broken moans by the waves of pleasure hitting him again and again as Hannibal milked streams of thick cum out of him. Most of them dripped over Hannibal’s fist, eventually growing too heavy they dripped down onto Will’s jeans. For a few seconds after it was over and the tsunami began to die down, Will was still incapacitated, suspended in mid-air while he caught his breath. He opened his eyes to a world spinning before him.

It was decidedly over when Hannibal took his fist off and raised it to his mouth. Will took his trembling hand off his thigh and rubbed his hot mouth, giving a staggering sigh. Eventually he was back in his own body, most of the way, enough at least to register what his psychiatrist was doing right next to him. Will stared up at him with a look of disgust as Hannibal ate his cum off his hand, closing his eyes as if Will wasn’t even there. He sucked on his own skin to get every last drop.

“I—Wh… What the fuck is wrong with you?” Will asked amidst his shallow pants. “You need help.”

Hannibal swallowed some of the fluid, rubbing his tongue on the insides of his cheeks, then glanced down to his own thigh laid over the chair arm. “I suppose I do,” he replied.

Will glanced the same direction and saw a clear bulge pressing against his slacks. “God, no, I mean real psychiatric help,” he hissed. He finally noticed his own cock was still hanging out of the slit in his pants and he sat up to start stuffing it back in. “I mean… Jesus Christ,” he whispered, at nothing in particular.

“It reads to me like this was a success.” Hannibal stood up from the couch arm and picked a few tissues from the box next to the couch. “Do you feel more at ease now?” he asked, drying his fingers.

“No,” Will said, hardened by a frenzied glare. “I very clearly remember telling you no. Or ‘don’t.’”

“Did you?” Hannibal looked blankly back at his patient.

“ _Yes_. Don’t lie to me; you heard it.”

“Would you like me to leave?”

“Yeah, sure, I guess I’d like that.” Will was spitting fire. “Get out. Get the fuck out.”

Hannibal looked down when he nodded and headed toward the entryway to the living room. He tossed the tissues in the trash on the way out. “Pay attention to your sleep tonight,” he called from the other room. Will was still trying to give him the glare equivalent to shoving him out himself, but Hannibal stubbornly returned to the room as he was pulling his jacket over his back. “If it is fitful, restful, or dreamless.”

“Leave,” was all Will snapped. “Don’t you fucking dare come back.”

Hannibal finally did, tail tucked between his legs, and the click of the door behind him was a relief.

Alana came over later that night, but Will could barely engage in conversation while they ate a meal over his dining table. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Hannibal’s hand had somehow known exactly what to do. Will couldn’t imagine having that much control over anything; or feeling that physically split apart.

He had never thought himself to be interested in men. Men had never turned him on before. Back when it happened he hadn’t really registered the picture of Hannibal eating his cum off his hand like it was a delicacy. It was humiliating in the moment, but upon revisitation it made a piece of him shake with the murmur of an earthquake.

“Will?”

Will looked up to see Alana watching him. He tightened his lips and a smile surged over it disheartedly, like a glitch. “Sorry,” he said, digging his fork back into his meal. “I’m just thinking.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be.”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry,” Alana said. Her hand reached over the glossy hardwood surface for the wrist he had set on the edge of the table, but it stopped halfway. They stared at the inches in between, neither of them ready to close them.

Will shook his head in a daze. “No, it’s okay,” he said. “I get it. It was best for both of us.”

“But I should have been there for you. I was scared of hurting you, so I backed away. But I still ended up hurting you. I keep thinking that if I hadn’t been so scared…” The thought finished in both of their heads but she sighed out her nose, ending it.

“It’s not your fault,” Will told her.

“I know, but I could have been a part of the solution too. I want to make up for that now." But in the pause, Alana withdrew her hand, looking unsure with every one of her movements. “I love you,” she went on. “Like a brother, but I really do love you, and I want you to know you can always come to me if you need anything.”

“Thank you.” Will nodded, picking up his glass to sip. “I love you, too.”

“You’re not alone.”

But Will felt alone. Staring up at his ceiling that night and the shadows that waved across it, he felt alone.


	3. Three

Will was mentally armed for when Hannibal arrived that next day, around three as expected. Three raps sounded on his door with the same timbre as each visit before that, like he was committed to knocking on the same spot every time. Will clicked his mental magazine into his gun and had it pointed at 45 degrees as he approached the door, limping through the crowd of dogs parting at his heels. They didn’t seem at all as bothered by his scent as Will was.

He opened it to see his psychiatrist there, dressed back from the previous sessions into a plain juniper turtleneck. There in his hands were two purple-lidded tupperwares stacked in one hand and a potted bamboo plant in the other. As soon as the door opened, the tension etched in Hannibal’s sharp features released.

“Good morning,” he said.

Will eyed the gifts in his hands. Just the sight of those hands nauseated him, knowing where they’d been. “What's that?”

“This is chicken cordon bleu,” Hannibal said, holding up the containers, “and this,” he held up the plant, “is a bamboo plant. In the mythology of the Andaman Islands, the first man on Earth was born out of a bamboo stalk. However, when he became lonely, he built himself a lover out of a hill of white ants, and miraculously she came to life as his wife. Thus this man discovered his ability to make living creatures and went on to create the first ancestral race. I think this would look nice in your kitchen as a reminder you don’t have to remain alone.”

He came forward just a step but Will closed the door a third of the way in his face and Hannibal retreated back. “Who said you could come in?” Will retorted. “What, you think you can just give me food and a plant and suddenly everything is fine?”

Hannibal glanced at the ground, reminding him of a dog with its ears down about to whimper, even when his lips were drawn in a level frown. Will pursed his and hardened his shell so he wouldn’t accidentally feel bad for him. And without another word, he backed up and shut the door louder than normal.

Will pulled the curtains facing the front yard shut on his way back to the living room and settled into his armchair with his book again. But for the next five minutes, he couldn’t do any reading. His eyes were fixed on the tall shadow behind the curtain, waiting for it to move. It seemed like an eternity before it did. Then the silhouette knelt down before turning and leaving down the sidewalk. Will only relaxed when he heard the car engine start and fade away.

Eventually, when he had the energy, he opened the front door again to see the bamboo plant and his portion of cordon bleu sitting on the front step.

The plant did actually look rather quaint in the window of Will’s kitchen, although while leaning on his counter and admiring it he wondered if he should move it to his bedroom. It could either encourage Hannibal to return or mock him for doing so. At a loss of decisiveness, Will left it there in full view. He warmed his lunch up just a few feet away and ate it in the living room, devouring a few more chapters of the John Douglas book.

The next day was the same. Will was expecting Hannibal’s return at around three, and sure enough, at 2:58 Will heard the crunch of the car wheels over the dirt road. Will glanced up to make sure the curtains were closed, and they were, so he turned his attention back down to his laptop. He managed to keep it there, too, even as the three knocks tried to tug it away. Will stayed where he was, ignoring his dogs that rushed up to the entryway with their tails wagging and eager noses sniffing the crack between the door and the wall.

The knocks came in two more sets before the shadow behind the curtain finally disappeared. The car drove away and Will waited a few more minutes, just to make sure it was safe, before opening the door to see what was on his porch that day. It was another tupperware of lunch, this time with a second smaller box containing what he soon figured out was dessert.

Since it went so well that time, Will carried on the same plan that next day. Hannibal’s car pulled up at about the same time and he knocked again, then again, and a third time for good measure, then the car disappeared. Will went outside to find another serving of lunch and dessert on his porch.

He ate in the kitchen alone.

The metal of his silverware clattered against his table alone.

Winston sat beside his chair in case looking cute might earn him a snack. Will wanted to give him some but knew that if he did, he’d have to share with all his dogs, and he had to leave something for himself. He just stared into Winston’s dark, wide eyes, until he saw something different. A pleading for something new.

“He’s not coming back,” Will told him sternly. The words echoed across the room. The wind was still that day so no leaves tickled his windows, and there was no other voice but his own to silence the silence.

Will exhaled and looked away at the sunbeams lying exhausted on the floor. He wished his dog would leave him alone for a while, but he was too afraid of the sound of his own voice to say anything. Eventually it was impossible to ignore. He had to glance down and meet Winston’s pleading, coal-like eyes, gazing up at him like his owner was the only person alive. Suddenly Will lost his appetite. He set his lunch down on the floor for Winston to happily lap up, and soon the rest of the dogs were speeding in to get a taste. By that time Will was limping away to his bedroom to take a nap and shut his mind off for a few hours.

**Session Four**

Hannibal came at 3:01 the next day and knocked. Will stayed where he was, just waiting it out while his dogs rushed to the door. But two minutes passed and there was no follow-up knock. Will looked up from his novel—fiction that time, but still a criminal profiling investigation—at the curtain by his door. There was a shadow lingering in the bottom corner of the window.

After a while of staring at it and waiting for it to move, and seeing no change, Will relented and pushed himself to his feet with a sigh. Using his cane he was able to get over to the front door within the minute. He opened it to see Hannibal sitting on his front porch steps, surrounded by several of Will’s dogs who were excitedly sniffing his pant legs and the hand that was petting them. At the sound of the door, Hannibal twisted to face Will.

“Good afternoon,” he greeted. It was as refreshing as if it was the first human voice Will had heard in decades, even though he had seen Alana just the night before. It sounded different in his ears than any other human voice.

Still, Will surveyed the scene cautiously, while a few more dogs slipped past the door. “Do you ever leave?” he asked.

“It’s not my forte.” Hannibal took up two red-lidded tupperwares in his hand and stood up. He ventured over to Will, each step toward his front door ringing hollow in the empty, dead space between them. He finally stopped what felt like a safe distance.

There was a silence in which both of them waited for something from the other, hoping in vain it might be an antidote for an unknown illness. Hannibal’s other hand was in his pocket. The same hand that had been on Will. Will felt the acrid taste of humiliation rise in his throat as he thought about chopping it off. It was the only just way to end this.

Finally Hannibal asked, simply, “May I come in?”

“Do you understand why I don’t want you here?” Will asked, eyebrows drawn together.

“Yes, I do.”

“You should be begging for me to talk to you again.”

“I am.”

“Do you realize that was my first sexual experience with anyone?” Will snapped, and the backlash of his words rang louder in his own ears than it apparently did in Hannibal’s. Hannibal kept his mouth even, attitude level as if he’d known it all along. That aggravated Will even more and shame came to drown him as he bowed his head and tangled his fingers in his hair. “God,” he choked. “And that makes me sound so weak.”

“You’re not weak, Will.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Will hissed. “I don’t want that from you.”

“Does affection offend you for drawing attention to your need for it?”

“Why do you keep doing that?” Will whispered. His head came up and he leaned it on the doorway, shaking with how violently his heart pounded in his chest. But no matter how loud it yelled, he could never figure out what it wanted. Whether it was to jump out of his chest like a fish from its bowl or for Will to make it stop. Tears were in his eyes, but angry tears he wasn’t ashamed of. “Why do you feel such a need to—to untangle me? You’re a sadist. You enjoy it.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“You’re not fucking forgiven.”

“That’s okay. That’s not why I’m apologizing.”

“Shut up.”

Hannibal backed down and sealed his lips, but his compliance only made Will exponentially angrier. Yet there was nothing left to say. Will went silent, gripping the doorway with a kind of fuming that only lasted for a minute or more before it had to roll over and expose its belly for what it truly was. His shoulders fell and he closed his eyes, lost in an intense melancholy.

He was glad Hannibal wasn’t looking at him. Instead his eyes were focused on a window to their side. The little bamboo plant sat there looking out over the front yard like a solitary guard, or a lighthouse beam calling someone home.

“You wanted a quiet death with yourself,” Hannibal went on. “I understand where the desire lies. Humans yearn to feel loved by one other; the only difference between any of us is whether we prefer to channel our love through silence or passion. In this situation I would choose the latter. If I had to die, I would rather be murdered.”

“Be careful what you ask for,” Will muttered. He ran his finger over the wood making the doorway, miraculously without picking up splinters.

“I mean that I would like to be bonded with someone so intensely that they could take me out of existence.”

“What about into existence?” Will asked. “How was your relationship with your mother?”

Hannibal smiled and it seemed such a strange display of emotion. “Complex,” he replied.

He turned back to Will and somehow, lost within the wide number of moments and motions he could have made, he caught the right moment and motion that arrested Will’s gaze. Will didn’t want to move it. He didn’t.

“May I come in?”

In the kitchen, Hannibal was unpacking their lunches just a few feet away.

“Did Alana come over last night?” he asked.

Will was leaning on the counter where the bamboo sat. When he turned around to face his psychiatrist, the sun beams shifted over his face to make the other eye glow a bright hazel. “How did you know?”

“Your dishes are gone.” Hannibal nodded down to the sink and set in front of Will his lunch, organized onto a plate. “I wasn’t sure if you were in the right frame of mind to have cleaned them last night.”

“Oh.” Will looked down at his meal. “Yeah, she did them. I tried to stop her. She’s persistent.”

“How high are acts of service in your love languages?”

“I can’t remember; maybe second or third. Quality time is definitely the first, and physical touch and gift giving are pretty low.”

Will picked up the fork Hannibal had set in front of him and leaned enough weight on the counter that he didn’t have to worry about his leg failing him. The first bite he took was heaven. He closed his eyes and fully savored the combination of flavors before swallowing. “That’s good,” he acknowledged, treading carefully over how much praise he was willing to give. “Thank you.”

They moved onto the back porch this time, now that a cold front was coming in and it was starting to feel like they were truly standing on the cusp of autumn. Will’s dogs were especially hyper that day and they raced against each other in the distance, bowing and barking at each other. Winston adhered loyally to his side, though, curled up with his chin on his paws next to Will’s chair. Will had put his mental gun back in its holster—still loaded, but no longer in his hand.

“Alana apologized to me the other night,” Will told him, out of the blue. He felt and stubbornly refused to acknowledge Hannibal’s gaze on the side of his head. “Not last night but a few days ago. You know, for estranging me after we had that confusion between us.”

“How did that affect you?”

“I was glad for it.” Will nodded, confirming his own feelings to himself. They were sometimes hard to weed out. “I appreciated it, but it didn’t really hit me. Something about it was lost. I still appreciate her friendship, but there used to be a depth to it I just can’t muster anymore.”

“She showed you, perhaps, that her compassion had limits,” Hannibal suggested. “Her behavior revealed that she didn’t care for you in the way you needed.”

“Yeah.” Will breathed out of his nose. “I forgive her, because I know she’s sorry. But that’s different from being able to reverse it. I guess I just don’t care as much anymore.” His chin rested on three fingers, index finger propping his cheek up. Across the treeline, a few leaf clusters were turning red. Autumn was definitely knocking at their doorstep. “About anything, really,” he added in a mutter.

“This is a lonely state to be in, Will.”

Hearing his name in that sentence, Will felt as if he had never been spoken to as directly as he had then. He closed his eyes and let it wash over him.

“A state of mind and state of physical being.” Hannibal gestured around them, to the field looking bare even while several dogs shimmied their way through the tall grass. “You grow as close to nature as if you were a tree yourself, and while that is a fantastic atmosphere to root yourself in, you can only rely so much on the healing power of your environment. You are not a bamboo plant. You can’t survive on nature and dogs forever; you are a human being who needs sincere human connection in his life. It is why we exist.”

Will focused down on Winston and the way his body heaved and shuddered with every breath. He remembered when his fur was fuller, and when he shed. There wasn’t so much to shed now.

“Tell me something bad about yourself,” he murmured. In the silence Hannibal was probably flipping through his catalog of memories, which Will expected were organized much more neatly than his own. Will’s thoughts were more like a sea where he had to go fishing every time he wanted to speak.

A few leaves abandoned their branches in the distance, floating to the ground.

“I was once in the same state as you,” Hannibal answered. “I spent time contemplating the end of my life until I found solace in psychiatry, presenting to me a new avenue of seeking human connection.”

Will nodded slowly. “That makes a lot of sense,” he said. Then he smiled a little, stretching his mouth wide on one side. “Was that also a sexual awakening for you?”

“It was, in fact. Although that was a separate process from psychiatry itself.”

“And now you don’t really care, do you?” Will swiveled his head to Hannibal and when their eyes made that contact, he felt for a moment as if they shared the same skin. That the words exchanged between them were inhalations and exhalations of the same continuous breath. “You don’t really care if you get suspended or have your license revoked. You just want what you came to psychiatry for in the first place. Human connection.”

Hannibal’s eyes spoke it all.

They had both turned away to watch the leaves turn to crinkle, turn to brown, die, and detach from their benefactors at the slowest rate possible. The sun crawled over their heads to the western horizon and burst when it pricked the tree tops. Orange, pink, and red gushed from the center, spilling out over the clouds and dripping down their visions.

Hannibal stood up from his chair and walked around Will’s, arriving before him. From his higher position, Will turned his judgmental eyes down at the man kneeling before him.

“Let me,” Hannibal whispered. His hand caressed up the inside of one thigh and his extended fingers rubbed the spot in between.

The breath Will took was tame enough that Hannibal felt justified to continue. He rose up slightly to undo Will’s belt like he had before. He pulled his khakis and underwear down enough that he could pick Will’s mostly soft length and wrap his lips around it.

Will’s blood boiled and his mouth fell open. “J—Jesus,” he whispered, and his head fell back while Hannibal bobbed up and down on his cock, completely unfettered. “Okay.”

He was hard within no time. Hannibal reached for Will’s hand, glued nervously to his thigh, and brought it to the back of his head. The touch of his dirty blonde hair was a new sensation Will never expected to feel, but there it was in his hand, just waiting to be played with. The strands were so thin that they were easy to stroke back and collect.

Will didn’t know if it was part of Hannibal’s plan or its unintentional byproduct, but messing with his hair proved an easy starting point for Will to then move his otherwise reluctant gaze over Hannibal’s forehead, down his nose, and onto his lips easily swallowing the majority of Will’s cock. That visual sent heat raging to Will’s face. He had the air punched out of him and no space in his mind for shame, just the breathtaking pleasure that caused sighs to fall out of his mouth and his eyes to roll back. Whatever Hannibal possessed in his tongue that massaged his shaft like that was liquid gold.

Emboldened, Will pushed his hands further to the back of Hannibal’s head, and pulled him until his nose was pressing against the hair on his groin. The tip of his cock hit the lining of his throat and Hannibal seemed to be growing more vigorously in his movements with every inch he swallowed. “Yeah,” Will whispered, transfixed on the sight. “Oh my God that’s good.”

Hannibal raised his head off, applying the same unrelenting motion of his hand as the time before. He knew from the way Will was breathing that he was close. “Come in my mouth,” he whispered, hot breath falling against Will’s shaft. He looked up and their eyes met. “You taste divine.”

“That _feels_ divine,” Will muttered, using his hand to urge him forward again. Hannibal obeyed and swallowed his whole cock several times, then he leaned back and gripped the base with one hand while he swirled his agile tongue around the head.

“Yeah—” Will gasped suddenly and his hips bucked forward. “Fuck. That’s good. That’s—” His head fell back and a moan caught in his throat when he came without warning. Hannibal was quick to take half the length in his mouth so Will could shoot onto his tongue. He swallowed every drop.

It was nearly dark by the time Hannibal left. Twilight hung in that delicate indecision between a visual serenade of colors and the exhalation of the nighttime blueness. He knew exactly when to leave, too. Will regretted not returning the favor, but he didn’t regret not asking him to stay a little later.

He leaned on his cane, watching Hannibal’s car drive away through the kitchen window. The bamboo plant was bisecting the empty road.

Will was so light on his one good foot the next morning that he woke up at nine and decided he was up to going to the grocery store that day. His other leg was even gaining a little feeling back, slowly but surely. After shaving off the scruff he’d been letting grow for the past few days and dressing in his usual long-sleeved flannel tucked into his jeans, he headed out to his car with the cane by his side. He relished in the cold air hitting his face and the smell of pine he inhaled. Winston was right behind him, wagging his tail and trotting along as fast as he could.

“Sorry, buddy, you can’t go,” Will told him, pressing the fob on his key chain to unlock the doors. “Maybe a car ride later, alright?” His words didn’t quite reach Winston, though, who, even through the marble cataract floating in his eye, knew what a car meant. Will opened the driver’s-side door and Winston still sat before him obediently, tail swishing in the grass and dead leaves collecting around him. Will considered it for a moment, then relented, chuckling. “Alright, fine.”

He didn’t want to have to walk the distance all the way around to the passenger’s side, so he just opened the door wider for Winston. He allowed him to make one failed attempt at jumping before Will eased himself down. “C’mon, I’ll help you.” Will managed to lift his body up enough that Winston scrambled into the seat and stepped over the center console. “That’s it.”

He left the window cracked for Winston while he was inside for about twenty minutes, mostly wandering around the aisles and brainstorming what he might want. He had no list in mind, just the intention to eat. Luckily it was a Thursday afternoon and there were hardly any people in there but a few mothers loading up on breakfast foods.

Will carted his food out to his car with a prouder flow in his steps, then drove back to his house. Winston luckily had less trouble getting out than he did getting in, with gravity on his side, and thanked his owner for the adventure by sitting down where he’d landed and scratching his ear.

It took a while, but eventually Will had all his groceries inside and was eating a belated breakfast at his table by eleven. It was a few hours before the sound of his doorbell interrupted his silence and made his head spin round.

Although his heartbeat wouldn’t listen, he was almost sure it wasn’t Hannibal. Hannibal knocked. He had a distinct rhythm to it, too, a patient triad of raps that opened a door in Will’s mind before he’d answered. And Will was right in his intuition. He peered through the peephole and saw Jack there instead.

He opened the door. “Hey.”

“Hi. How are you?” Jack asked.

“Not bad.” Will stepped aside for him to enter, then picked his cane up off the wall and followed him in. Jack instinctively headed to the living room, but he was looking back, observing Will’s movements all the while. “Getting used to it?” he asked.

“A little bit. Feeling’s coming back, though, so that’s good.”

“Good.”

They stopped in the doorway to the main room so Jack could kneel down and say hello to the dogs that immediately recognized him. “Hey,” he murmured, a smile humming on his lips. He couldn’t pet them all fast enough before they were pushing past each other, tails slapping each other, swarming him for more. Their paws padded over the hardwood floor.

Now wasn't the time for a friendly hangout, though. Will could sense the pressure of something on Jack’s chest. He knew its weight and depth but not its shape. While Jack was giving his pets some attention, Will leaned on the doorway and laid his cane against his thigh, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whatever it would be.

Jack must have known there was no delaying it, either. Eventually the dogs interspersed around to wherever they found it important to go next, a few slipping out of the glass sliding door cracked open for them. Jack stood up, smoothing his hands on his pants. As soon as he opened his mouth, ready to start the delicate process of introducing his news, he saw Will’s eyes and without words, they shut up all his pretenses.

Taking a measured breath, Jack fitted his hands in his pockets and told him point-blank: “I've decided it's not a good idea to allow you to return to your job.”

Will felt a piece of himself die inside.

“I feel horribly responsible for what happened and that I didn't give you enough breaks.” Jack blinked, hard, pushing himself into a memory and back out. He held his palm up and open in between them. “If there were warning signs or cries for help I—”

“Jack.” Will leaned forward, hoping it would help his emotions urge his voice. “I need this job.”

“I'm insisting on as generous of a severance pay I can possibly get you,” Jack continued. “We’ll make sure you're taken care of until you're back on your feet.”

“No, but I—”

“And as for the mental side of it,” Jack finished for him, with a decided bob of his head, “no, you don't. You need something to keep your mind busy, but something that won't destroy you at the same time.”

“I'm working on that,” Will said, more fearful by the second. “Give me a few months to figure this out and I'll make it worth it for you and the department.”

“I'm sorry, my mind is made up.”

“But I—”

“I've been thinking about this ever since Alana found you that night.”

Will’s mouth opened and wavered. He turned away, looking at the walls of his home like he was asking for a second opinion, but he only found an echo. He turned back and his words caught in his throat. “This job is the only thing I have,” he admitted.

Jack’s soft frown read understanding; his eyebrows were drawn just slightly together. He took a step forward and his hand hesitated in the air, just as Alana’s had several nights before when it slid apprehensively over the table. Will was eyeing it like a mosquito flying dangerously close to his skin.

Finally the palm came down on his shoulder, firmly but not so tight Will couldn't have slapped it away. “Alana and I will always be there for you,” Jack promised. “That won't change.”

Will was still thinking through every possibility of what he could say that might change his mind, but nothing seemed to be convincing. He just pursed his lips, his eyes still on the hand resting on his shoulder, and Jack must have misinterpreted this as irritation or something like it because it slid right off.

Will ducked his head, averting his eyes back down to the floorboards. “Thanks,” he forced out of his knotted throat. “Wish everyone at the station well for me.”

“I will.” Jack looked over his shoulder at the couch, indicating with his body language they should go to the living room and take a seat. But Will stayed right where he was, hands in his pockets.

“I need some time to process,” he told him. He kept his eyes down while he rubbed his thigh, where an ache was starting to form from taking all his weight. “See you soon?”  
Jack shook his head. “I think I'd better stay,” he replied.

An icy smile bent Will’s lips with the same grace as a crowbar. “My psychiatrist comes at three every day.” He stretched his arm out and glanced at the watch underneath the cuff of his shirt. It was almost two. “I'll be fine.”

“Then do you mind if I stay until three?”

“No, thanks.” Will leaned off the doorway and picked up his cane, balancing his weight on it again.

Eventually, and in Will’s mind far too slowly, he had forced out Jack the front door. He watched him through the window as Jack turned back several times on his way down the sidewalk. He didn’t come back. Will didn’t know if he wanted him to. But his car pulled away anyway.

Will’s mind was a cesspool where thoughts boiled into intangible steam. He couldn’t vocalize anything to himself. Nothing ever gripped him like he felt it gripped other people; bitter depression just passed over him like an unpleasant smell he never wanted to give a name.

**Session Five**

Three knocks sounded at the door like they always had. Will was sitting in his chair with a book over the arm and his glasses on his nose when he heard it. Winston was curled up on his lap, something he very rarely did. Will didn’t look up when he called, “It’s open.”

The door opened with a faint squeak and even if Will hadn’t seen him from the corner of his vision, he would have recognized the tenor percussion of Hannibal’s shoes on the hardwood floor. All the dogs inside rushed him but for Winston, and Hannibal knelt down to say his hellos before setting something on the kitchen counter. Will glanced up from his book, chin resting on his knuckles, just in time as Hannibal was looking over his shoulder from the other room. Their eyes met like magnets hurling together.

“How are you today?” Hannibal asked. He turned into the kitchen again to do something Will couldn’t see, then came back toward the living room.

“Fine,” Will replied, pushing his glasses up with his knuckle. “How’re you?”

“Just fine, thank you.” Hannibal made an unexpected departure to the corner of the room, where he picked the second armchair up a few inches off the ground and carried it over to one side of the small table Will was reading by. Will watched as Hannibal pulled the blanket draped over the back by its corners, held it out to examine it for dog hair, then draped it on its cleanest side over the arm. He took a seat a foot or two away from Will, slightly angled to face him. Usually psychiatrists were either facing their patients dead-on or nearly so. Friends sat at a 45 degree angle. Hannibal had found a delicate balance in between. He sat back and folded his arms in his lap, keeping a neutral expression the whole time.

Will couldn’t help but smile and exhale a chuckle. Something about the way Hannibal always carried himself could be so amusing and compelling at the same time. He glanced down and closed his book. “My boss came over an hour ago and fired me,” he said.

Hannibal’s eyebrows rose and his lips sank in a frown. The sympathy went uncommunicated while Will took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “I get it,” he said. “I really do. I wouldn’t want me in law enforcement, either.”

“How did he deliver the news?”

“He was kind about it. He promised me a good severance pay and that he and Alana would always be there for me no matter what.” His shoulders jerked in a laugh.

Hannibal raised his chin in a half-nod, a mannerism Will was starting to see as the recognition of something he could sink his teeth into. “And you doubt this,” he said.

“I don’t think he’s lying,” Will replied, “but I don’t think it’s that easy. They’ll try their best, but people grow apart. Not to mention how the dynamic’s going to change. Before, we were all coworkers, so they depended on me as much as I did on them. It was all mutual. But if I’m not working with them, then our relationship will be reduced to them caring for me and pitying me and me not being able to give them the kind of emotional support they’d need from a real friend. Because I won’t be in a great place to give it and they’ll stop expecting it from me.”

“You saw Alana as an equal and when that power balance shifts, the relationship doesn’t feel genuine anymore. Do you see your boss as an equal? Or perhaps as a mentor?”

Will smiled. Winston’s body rose and fell peacefully beneath his palm. “A little bit of both,” he said.

“Do you feel loved by him?”

Will didn’t expect the breath he took while he hung his head to be so strenuous. He had to laugh at it a little, too. “I know that he loves me,” he answered. “And that he’s a great person who’s doing his best.”

“But do you feel loved by him?” Hannibal paused and Will said nothing. “I mean, when he was here an hour ago, standing in front of you, forming your name in his mouth, did you feel loved? Did he hold your eyes in his?”

Crying wasn’t a solution to the pressure clutching Will’s heart. He kept his fingers in the patchy tufts of Winston’s fur when the light on his skin dimmed. A cloud passed over the sun and the light peeled away from the floor, dragging Will’s heart down with it.

Everything seemed to settle. The birds chirping outside hit the perfect note. The wind found its ground speed. When Will exhaled, an inexplicable peace settled around him that allowed him to close his eyes as gently as if he was going to sleep. Never before in his waking life had they shut that easily.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Will decided. He rubbed Winston’s back gently and the dog perked his ears up. _‘Walk?’_ his face said. After he’d wobbled off Will’s lap, Hannibal stood up with his patient and they left out of the back sliding door. Autumn air drew them farther out into the lawn.

Will thought about closing the door on their way out, but when he left it open, he didn’t feel a bit of fear urging him to change it. So he walked away, Hannibal beside him and Winston by his heels, and they entered the shelter of the vine maples and their colors growing closer to fire every day.

Winston was unusually energetic that afternoon. He had a bounce in his step while he trotted next to them, Will could tell by the energetic crunch of the dead leaves beneath his paws. While perusing the breadth of the woods towering over them, Will caught glances of his dog tilting his chin straight up at Hannibal. Hannibal had his hands in his pockets and was looking back down at him, into the cataract and the dark pool it floated in. Winston’s tail wagged at him. They seemed to be having a conversation. Winston was confiding something Hannibal handled with great care and thanked him for, graciously. Their dark eyes read understanding of every cell around them.

An indiscernible amount of time later, Hannibal and Will were sitting on the green rug below the majesty of one white oak that seemed to carry the sun on its back. There were storm clouds crawling over the treetops from the north, but with the wind so still, Will knew it would be another few hours before they arrived. Leaves shaded them with a passing kiss over their faces. They said nothing for hours.

Will was on his back with his head on a soft patch of grass, hands resting on his stomach and bringing all of his body to that one central point. Hannibal was a few feet away, leaning against the trunk and tossing a stick for Winston to run and fetch.

It was so easy to drift away. The warm colors of autumn blurred before his eyes and gave way to falling darkness.

It could have been minutes or hours before he rose out of his sleep. The sky was a little darker; dusk was closing in. The oranges and yellows around him glinted with the pink blush in the sky, just over the edge of the storm clouds now nearly above them. With the breeze slightly rougher, Will used a sort of dazed echolocation to sense whether or not Hannibal was still there, and he was, sitting against the tree trunk where Will had last seen him. The quiet sound of his breathing blended in with the woods’ hums and bristles. Will could close his eyes again in peace, and he did, knowing someone would be there when he woke up.

Fingers, like the tickle of leaves, brushed the top of his hair. “Come here,” a voice whispered.

Will inhaled to pull as much strength out of its sleep as he needed to push himself backward; no more, no less. As soon as he was where he needed to be, he released his energy back to the ground from where he’d borrowed it. He lowered his heavy head onto Hannibal’s lap for long fingers to stroke his hair back from his forehead. Will shut his eyes again and floated in and out of that strange, dark chamber between sleep and consciousness. But there were no predators in the woods that could eat him, and no storm clouds that could touch him.

The sky started to leak just as they were heading back. Winston ran ahead of them to the back doors, still so energetic. A few droplets had wet Will’s hair by the time they stepped inside, and Hannibal closed the twin doors behind him. Will did a quick headcount of every dog sitting in his living room, excited at their return, and found every one of them accounted for.

He fed them and then he and Hannibal ate dinner at the table with a little light conversation, but nothing close to a therapy session. They’d attempted to have one earlier, but after that, all attempts at an organized relationship were abandoned. Every minute made it more obvious.

They were finished around seven and Hannibal took the initiative in collecting both their plates. “I had another gift for you today,” he said, heading off to the kitchen.

Will chuckled, leaning his elbows on the table and rubbing his eyes. “You don’t have to keep doing that, you know,” he said.

“This one is a bit more useful than the bamboo plant.” Hannibal’s voice echoed from the kitchen with the clink of their plates in the sink.

Moments later he reemerged with a CD in his hand. He outstretched it to Will, who took it and looked over the monochrome pattern of a piano sitting in a blank white room. “Chopin?”

“It might bring you a sense of peace, when all else fails. May I?” Will handed back the CD and Hannibal took it to the living room just around the corner, where he opened the CD player Will hadn’t used in forever and loaded it in. Hannibal must have spotted it during one of their sessions.

Will heard the mechanic whirr as he skipped a few songs until he came to one in particular. At the moment, Will’s mind was so elsewhere it took him a moment to realize that the rain showering the roof wasn’t itself part of the recording. One low note was followed by several higher tones dropping in a seemingly whimsical rhythm, but with an underlying sense of form.

Hannibal came back into the kitchen just as Will was taking his cane and standing up. “This is Barcarolle in F sharp,” Hannibal explained. He had a watchful eye on the situation as Will balanced himself on the edge of the table. “Chopin wrote this a few years prior to his death, but personally I find no fear in it. Only serenity.”

Will nodded, listening closer. The notes climbed in a crescendo, competing with the storm that raged increasingly harder around them. He glanced to the twin glass doors in his living room, glowing with the soft blue light of evening enduring against the darkened room, like moonlight in an ocean. He worried for a moment he hadn’t locked them, but just one look at the handle told Will that Hannibal had taken care of it and he relaxed. That meant there was just one more issue to address as well.

“Are you going or staying?” Will asked, glancing up at him. He hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but the words were out there now, pressing them both.

He had just a half-second to worry before Hannibal held his eyes and asked, “Do you want me to stay?”

Will didn’t have to speak. He didn’t move because Hannibal was already bending down. Hannibal cupped his hand around Will’s cheek and to the back of his neck, pressing their mouths together.

Kissing Alana was a purely lip-to-lip contact, constrained to kissing and nothing else, as all Will’s kisses had been. Hannibal tasted him completely, with tongue, teeth, lip, and everything inside their mouths. Nothing was off-limits. Will’s hands roamed up Hannibal’s chest and he twisted his head, allowing Hannibal to move in deeper and make love to him with his jaw. His tongue moved like a wave against Will’s, his fingers tracing the curve of his face. He felt his form as if shaping him out of clay.

Will gripped the shelf of Hannibal’s shoulders with his fingers, thumb over his collarbone, and moved into him. Absorbed in the moment, it slipped his mind that his left leg couldn’t take the weight he wanted to put on it and it collapsed from under him. Luckily, Hannibal sensed this just a half second after it happened and his hands shot down to Will’s hips to hold him up. Will caught himself, too, with his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders. Hannibal didn’t waste any time pressing his lips to Will’s again. His hands then slipped down, cautiously at first, waiting for a command to stop, but eventually reached Will’s upper thighs and lifted him up with a hidden strength.

Will didn’t know how he felt about being lifted and carried down the hallway like that, and wrapping his legs around Hannibal’s hips so femininely—eventually they reached the bedroom. But he did like the way Hannibal laid him down on the edge of his bed and descended over him, like a large cat crawling over his prey. Will took his head in his hands and kissed his hunter with more vigor than he anticipated.

Their mouths worked together like gears. They turned together through space and matter. They turned perpetually, while Hannibal urged him farther back on the bed. Just the slap of the rain against his window was the only thing outside of their low breaths.

Hannibal ducked his head suddenly and pressed a hard kiss to the sensitive skin below Will’s jaw and Will gasped. His head fell back, opening his throat for more, and he preemptively tried to dismantle his shirt collar with fumbling fingers. He hadn’t realized there was a pressure point there until Hannibal was abusing it. Kisses turned to sucks that dotted under his chin and down his neck, every one making Will sigh. Hannibal tucked his nose inside Will’s shirt collar when it was open and ventured farther, onto his collarbone, and then to the first wisps of Will’s chest hair, when Will put a hand on his chest and stopped him.

“Wait,” he whispered. Hannibal came up and Will met his eyes. Outside the window, a gust of wind carried the rain like an ocean current against the leaves.

“Yes?” Hannibal whispered in return, voice low.

“I haven’t done anything for you.” Will’s words carried the same tremor he felt physically as burning heat in his cheeks. “It’s only fair.”

“You’ve done a lot for me, Will.”

“Not physically.”

Hannibal admitted it with the most subtle raise of his eyebrows and Will grew a little harder in his jeans. “You don’t seem very sure about it yourself.”

Will couldn’t deny that. It had only been a few days ago when he was convinced he had no interest in being with a man, but somehow that didn’t seem to even factor into this decision. Being gay and wanting Hannibal were entirely separate.

Still, Hannibal saw the hesitation in Will’s green eyes and he moved in to kiss him again, but Will set a firmer hand on his chest and pushed him away with some force. “Turn over,” he whispered.

“Don’t feel as if you—”

“I said turn over.”

Will had struck gold. Hannibal closed his mouth immediately, leaned away, and fell over onto his back where the window tossed moonlight over his face. Will climbed down on his body, lying sideways so his paralyzed leg was positioned out. He propped himself up, head at Hannibal’s hip.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Will admitted, pulling the belt apart. Originally he had intended to give a laugh to accompany that, but all that happened was his shoulders jerked a little and the words rang barer than he wanted.

“I’ll teach you.” A hand roamed through Will’s hair, which relaxed him a little as he was tugging the zipper down. The action was nearly so familiar. He had done it a million times himself, but with his hands on another person, it was a mystery. Finally he reached inside Hannibal’s underwear and pulled his half-hard erection out of the waistband, stroking him uncertainly. Being, as Will had heard gay men call it, ‘familiar with the equipment,’ didn’t help when he barely used it himself. But he had no lotion on his hands, so it wasn’t long before he leaned forward, wetted his lips, and began the only way he guessed how—by taking just the tip in his mouth.

He heard Hannibal suck in a breath from above, so Will continued on like that, experimentally massaging his lips against the head like a full mouth kiss. He didn’t go far, first teaching himself how to tuck his teeth back.

“Use your tongue,” Hannibal whispered.

Will did, pressing the flattest part against the side of the cockhead and rolling it over. The next breath coming from Hannibal was more labored, and Will slid the knife-edge of his tongue through the slit. “Good,” Hannibal murmured, his fingers still twisted in Will’s hair. Will almost couldn’t hear him over the thunder crashing outside the room, overlapping with the sigh of pleasure from above. But he didn’t jump or hardly even hear it. He was too absorbed in his work. Distantly he could hear Chopin still playing, nearly lost in the rain.

With his eyes closed, Will stroked the shaft a little faster, even bobbing a little as he ventured past the head and kept his tongue pressed against the side. Now he could feel Hannibal’s eyes on the top of his head, and the hand in his hair crawled to the back of his neck. Suddenly Hannibal had control of his whole spine.

“How deep can you go?” His voice was strained.

Will smiled a little, not on command, and popped his mouth off. He wet his lips again and then lowered himself down, quickly taking half of the cock in his mouth and only stopping when his gag reflex was bracing to push back. A real moan came out of Hannibal that time. He didn’t tear his eyes away. Where Will went wrong was that his zeal got the best of him. He twisted his head a little to the side and his teeth came out reflexively. Hannibal winced in place.

“Sorry,” Will whispered as soon as he took his mouth off.

“That’s okay. Go slowly.”

Will chose not to. Instead he tightened his lips instead of his whole mouth, more easily tucking his teeth back, and bowed several inches onto Hannibal’s cock, twisting his mouth at the end and pressing his tongue earnestly against the side. The hand in his hair tightened a little and when Hannibal sighed, the last of Will’s inhibitions melted. He balanced himself with a hand on Hannibal’s thigh and went faster, quickly finding a rhythm as soon as he grew increasingly familiar with the texture and shape of a cock between his lips. But he never expected himself to enjoy it so much. Thunder hummed outside and the rain never stopped.

“Oh,” Hannibal exhaled. Surprise rocked his voice back and forth unsteadily. “Will, that’s perfect.” Will came up and his tongue swiped over the head and Hannibal blew out a sharp breath. “Maybe,” he whispered, strained, “just a little bit of teeth.”

Will paused, trying to think of how he was going to do this. He came off and reset, then took the length back in his mouth, a few inches to where it felt natural, and bobbed as carefully as he could while scraping just the bare edge of his teeth against the shaft.

A punctuated moan broke out of Hannibal like he’d been stabbed with the world’s most pleasant knife. “Fuck,” he gasped. “Yes.” Will heard the rustle of the pillow when Hannibal’s head fell back. “You’re.. very talented.”

“Thanks.” Will bit back a smile then kept on at a hastier pace than before.

Within minutes Hannibal was halfway to forcing his head down. He breathed out moans hopelessly floating in a sea of fragments of Will’s name and curses, and then one plea: “Let me come in your mouth.”

Will bobbed down as far as he could on the shaft, as good as a yes. But he kept the cockhead in the dip of his tongue when Hannibal released a raspy moan and came. Will felt him pulsing like a heartbeat in his palm. The same kind of life was beating outside his window. Will had never absorbed the heartbeat of nature into his own quite like he did letting the salty liquid flow onto his taste buds and down his throat. Hannibal moaned in time with the thunder.

Will awoke the next morning, peeking through his eyelids to the light blown across his room. His white sheets glowed as if they were brand new. He was facing away from the window but he didn’t have to be looking over his shoulder to sense the dew drops hanging on the undersides of the leaves. He was one. Behind him, two strong arms closed around his sides and two lips pressed against his shoulder. Hannibal’s measured breathing rose and fell against his skin.

When Will glanced at his clock and saw it was just past seven, he closed his eyes again and slowed his breathing. If he laid absolutely still he could feel the quiet tremor of his own chest from his heart, and if he paid even more attention he could sense the vibration of Hannibal’s heartbeat, indistinguishable from his own when his bare chest was pressed up against Will’s back.

He slipped in and out of sleep for a few more hours, only waking to warmth and Hannibal’s lips against his neck, and their bodies fitted together. Winston was curled up at the foot of the bed, too, on Will’s side pressed against his knees. But one time he woke up, it stuck; around nine. Hannibal’s forehead was now against his shoulder and he took a bit of a heavier exhale and squeezed his arms tighter around Will’s stomach, tucked under his shirt. It very nearly convinced Will he never had to get up.

A minute later, Will opened his eyes again and reached over his shoulder to stroke Hannibal’s hair on his neck. He felt a hot exhale on his back.

“I'll be right back,” he whispered, craning his head around. Hannibal’s head was bowed and with his eyes closed, he looked asleep. But after what was some deliberation on whether or not he should let him leave, Hannibal released his arms and Will slipped out between him and Winston.

He sat up on the edge of the bed groaning as he stretched himself awake enough to move. Just before he left, he turned back and kissed Hannibal’s forehead where his messy hair lay. The first signs of a smile graced his features. As Will stood up and his weight left the mattress, Hannibal pulled up the blanket higher and replaced Will by snaking his arm under the pillow and holding it to his head.

Will left the room while bracing his hand on the walls, until he got to the kitchen and used the cane he'd abandoned there. He made some coffee and petted the dogs that came up to say good morning.

Despite the sun igniting the hardwood floor and walls, the air was a little nippy. Will, being in boxers and a t-shirt, was looking forward to getting back under the covers. But while he leaned his knuckles against the counter and stared at the rumbling coffee maker, he knew he had to take care of that other thought writhing in the back of his mind since the morning before.

He found his phone in the kitchen and dialed. It rang four or five times before asking him which ward he needed and then putting him on hold for another minute. Will waited patiently, watching a car disappear between the trees sheltering him from the dirt road.

Finally, the hold ended. “Good morning, how can I help you?” a woman asked.

“Hi, my name is Will Graham and I stayed here about a week ago,” Will replied, staring down and idly scratching a mark on the counter with his fingernail. “I was assigned a psychiatrist afterward and I wanted to see if there's any,” he hesitated, “I don't know, minimum period for how long the contract should last? Or if I can just end it at my discretion.”

“Let me check on that for you.” The line went quiet except for some faint typing. Then her pause was audible. “I'm sorry, I don't see that we assigned you a psychiatrist.”

Will opened his mouth to reply but his brain stopped in place. “Sorry?”

“Is it possible we recommended you one outside of our staff?”

“No.” Will wiped his nose with the back of his hand and turned around. The coffee smell was too thick for his sudden sickness. “You're sure you didn't send anyone?”

“No, sir, we don't assign therapists without the patient’s expressed permission.”

Will took a shaky breath, and nodded. “Okay. Sorry, I must've been mistaken. Thank you.” He hung up before she could reply.

The counter edge was digging into Will’s back and might have been the only thing keeping him upright. Both legs felt numb, like he could fall over any minute. He just stared at his hallway and the few dogs sleeping late into the morning in their armchair. It was still pulled up next to Will’s, where Hannibal had moved it the day before. And didn't leave afterward.

To the tune of the coffee grinding behind him, Will paced over to the right drawer and took a steak knife out of its place. But on second thought he put it back as silently as he could and closed the drawer. He took his cane up and made his way to the living room, where in a closet his hunting backpack was pre-packed and waiting for him. He knelt down and fished around inside for the hunting knife in its sheath, and tucked it and his cellphone under his arm while he limped his way back to the bedroom.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm making this the first fic in a series, so if you want to read more of this storyline, go ahead and subscribe to the series! This is the last chapter of this part- hope you enjoy it.

Will pushed the bedroom door open an inch with his knuckle and peeked in. Hannibal still had one arm tucked under the pillow, half-hugging it as securely as he’d held Will earlier that morning. Hair strands lay like a dismantled spider web over his eyes, tucked under the pillow he buried half his face in. When he awoke he would mend it back into its complex, taut pattern.

Will stepped the rest of the way in and nudged the door shut, quiet enough that neither Winston nor Hannibal stirred, but even before he approached the bed he had lost the nerve to do anything. The only reaction that felt natural was to lean on the desk facing the foot of his bed, with the knife half-sheathed in his lap. Or perhaps half unsheathed. It was hard to tell. The drum of his heartbeat had died down by the time he stopped registering the knife’s weight in his hand and left him, instead, in paralysis.

The final stage of his emotions was usually the absence of emotion. First came shock, then anger, then depression, then nothing. He didn't feel as if he'd raced through the stages of grief, just skipped a few. His heart was cutting corners. He could feel it while he stared at Hannibal’s sleeping face.

About half an hour passed while, outside the window, the juncos’ shrill calls were louder than both of them combined. A car breezed by on the road, not a common occurrence, and it might have been a hallucination. It took a while before Hannibal’s breathing fractured. After so long of moving in time with it, Will noticed immediately when their inhales and exhales fell out of step. A minute later and Hannibal inhaled deeply and squinted his eyes open. As soon as he noticed Will across from him he turned his heavy body over to lay on his back, the snow-white sheets rustling beneath him. Likely, Will thought, he wasn’t used to the feeling of being caught vulnerable.

Hannibal’s eyes shifted down to the blade in Will’s lap, but he didn't move or react. Sleep clung to him stubbornly.

“I called the hospital,” Will said. He waited, searching for a twitch at the corner of his lips; an irregular blink. Hannibal’s eyes remained fixed on Will’s chest, aware but not afraid. Finally he began to sit up. The sheets fell off his bare stomach and settled across his lap as he pushed hair out of his eyes and then remained silent.

Will didn’t know what he wanted out of this interaction, but what he got was disappointingly anticlimactic. A bit irked, he rolled his tongue over a sour taste in his mouth he couldn’t wash out. “What's your real name?”

Hannibal paused a few moments longer and then finally told him, “My name _is_ Hannibal Lecter. And I was a psychiatrist at the Oregon State Hospital until very recently.”

“What happened recently?”

It was then Will could’ve sworn he saw a tremor of real worry in the way Hannibal licked his lips. But he began as evenly as always. “Four months ago I was assigned to a patient named Bedelia. A domestic violence incident had rendered her bedridden years ago, and in recovery she made an attempt on her life. After some inpatient counseling she was sent home, and because she was unable to travel to my office, I visited her on a biweekly basis. What began as a doctor-patient relationship grew gradually intimate. Physically and spiritually. It was most similar to… talking to an extension of your own body. She was as close to me as my own nervous system, and I to hers.” Hannibal’s eyes glanced up to gauge Will’s expression but he only found the steel in his eyes, so he looked back away. “So it was a surprise to me when, a little over a week ago, she told me she didn't want me in her life anymore. As a therapist or a lover. The reasons therefore require more context than I’ve given.”

“What did you do?”

The answer sat on Hannibal’s tongue for what felt like an eternity before he gave it up. “I left her house that afternoon and returned that evening,” he replied. “Then I choked her, and cooked her flesh.”

Will’s mouth fell open and struggled to form the words. “You ate her?” he said.

Hannibal was silent, unapologetic in his posture that didn’t change and attitude that didn’t budge, as if it had no reason to.

Will hardly knew how to process the information as a human. So the homicide detective side of his brain, starved for something to latch onto, filled the void. He looked over Hannibal. With his muscular arms and chest, which Will had only taken notice of the night before, he was clearly strong enough for such an act. Cooking was emotionally significant to him, and he was starved for intimacy. Far more than Will ever was.

“You wanted to bond to her forever,” Will muttered.

Hannibal nodded, steadily. “I heard about your admittance to the hospital through colleagues and I was intrigued by your job. After I became a criminal myself, I decided it would be a poetic end of sorts if I were to visit you once before I disappeared, perhaps to glean some knowledge about my own psychology in the process.”

Will drew his eyebrows together. “And then make me kill myself.”

“That was not my first intention,” Hannibal replied. “You just so happened to press one of my only buttons, and suddenly I saw you as a surrogate of Bedelia.”

“You wanted her to kill herself?”

“If the alternative was ending our relationship, yes.”

Will swallowed the disgust in his throat, wondering if he even wanted to ask the question burning in his mouth. “But you kept coming back.”

Hannibal remained locked in Will’s gaze as he replied, “That was not my first intention, either.”

Will blinked and looked down, realizing for the first time in quite a while that he was still holding the knife. Sunlight glinted off the blade, reflecting a white beam on the adjacent wall. It remained half-sheathed. He took a breath and pulled it out all the way with a scrape of the blade against the leather, holding it up to show Hannibal. “Alright,” he said, a bit resigned and as unthreatening as he had ever felt. “Stay where you are. If you move I’ll stab you.”

When he picked up his cellphone from the desk, Hannibal’s face fell in a way Will had never seen before. A little of that satisfaction he was missing seeped in, but it seemed so meaningless now. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Will had the keypad up in a few seconds and it took him very little time to dial 911. The line rang and he held his phone up to his ear, ignoring Hannibal’s stare begging for a chance to meet his. Will wouldn’t let himself. Instead he put his attention on Winston, still curled up on the edge of his bed. His proximity to Hannibal was making him nervous. He whistled. “Winston. Come over here.” Winston didn’t move, and Will snapped his fingers, a sign he only used with his dogs when they were in trouble. “Winston.” He whistled. “Get over here.” Winston didn’t move.

Finally Will broke away from the table, limping the foot of distance between that and the footboard to the bed. One hand was already busy with the phone, so he set the knife down too far away for Hannibal to reach and shook Winston’s back. “Winston. C’mon, buddy.” Winston didn’t move. Will let his palm rest on his fur for a moment, still. His hand didn’t rise or fall.

The dispatcher picked up with a click. “911, what’s your emergency?”

Will’s hand started to shake, but it wasn’t Winston moving it. It almost seemed like he was; his image trembled with the blurry light in Will’s tears.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

Will opened his mouth to say something, either call Winston’s name or state his emergency. But nothing came out.

Hannibal crawled forward with the sheets, reached across Will’s lap, and pressed the red ‘end call’ button for him. Will couldn’t bring himself to care. He ran his hand down Winston’s head to his neck and behind his ears thinking somehow, against all the odds, his dog might lift his head and look up at Will with his ghostly eyes. But Will could feel the coldness underneath his palm.

His next shallow breath caught in his throat. A hand larger than his curled around the back of his neck, cupping his skull from behind, and Will leaned down the rest of the way onto Hannibal’s chest. So he made his home there, leaning his weight into him and pressing his face against his skin until both were dripping wet.

Will couldn’t carry him. It was going to be impossible with his bad leg, and while sitting on the couch with Winston lying across his lap, he was deeply afraid to acknowledge this. Hannibal didn’t make him. He returned from the garage after giving Will some time to sit alone, and as he came closer, the other dogs scattered from where they had collected around Will’s legs and said their goodbyes to Winston’s body. Without a word, Hannibal bent to a knee and gently collected the dog in his arms. Will watched him like a hawk, tense, as if he would do anything to stop it.

They walked out onto the porch, down the lawn, and into the fray of the woods. Hannibal had Winston in his arms like a child. Will used the shovel as a walking stick.

Moving through the Douglas firs, Will glanced sideways and caught the way Hannibal was looking at Winston. It almost looked like he was smiling, but it was closer to a pleasant resting face. Not absent of grief but not overwhelmed by it. He was staring into Winston’s eyelids the same way he had looked into his eyes the day before. Will felt as if he was the last one of the three to understand what it meant.

They were about ten minutes into the woods when Will arrived in front of a tree he heard Winston barking at in an echo in his mind. He wasn’t sure if he had ever been in front of this tree before, but something about the phantom memory rang so true in Will’s ears that he felt he had to stop. Hannibal followed his lead and stopped next to him.

Will leaned on the bark and sat down against its trunk, and once he was comfortable, Hannibal bent down and gave him Winston’s body to hold. Meanwhile, he took up the shovel and began to dig right where the most level spot was below that tree.

Will stroked back Winston’s fur and tried to make it look as nice as he could. Then, on second thought, messed it up again, remembering how he had tried to groom him once only to watch him leave the porch steps and immediately roll around in the dirt. Will smeared his palm in the dirt by his side and rubbed it into Winston’s back. Hannibal was still throwing the soil from the deepening grave in the opposite direction from them. Luckily the ground was soft there.

“Good boy,” Will whispered so quietly only he could hear it, massaging Winston behind the ears. “Good boy.” The dog remained still, eyes closed. But his expression was peaceful. He truly looked asleep; nothing more, nothing less.

Hannibal was done with the grave not too long afterward, but he stuck the shovel in the ground and leaned on the handle for a while. Will wasn’t done. Hannibal spent the time allowing his eyes to wander around the woods and the way the sun beamed in sheets of glassy light, all crossed by the tree trunks stretching like towers above them.

Will stroked Winston’s fur on his neck countless times, memorizing the feel of his fur between his fingers and the weight of his body in his lap. He reached around to his stomach and pet him there, one last belly rub for the road.

His nose stung as his eyes welled up. “I love you.” He blew a deep breath out and leaned down as far as he could, until he could press his lips to Winston’s head. He whispered against his fur, “I love you.”

When he began sitting up from the tree, it was time. Hannibal leaned the shovel on the tree and came to Will’s side to balance them both while Will lowered Winston into the hole in the soil. Then for a few more minutes they let the sight settle, kneeling over the edge and watching the dog from above. Will leaned down on his hands and knee and gave his dog one more scratch behind the ears before he withdrew his hand from the grave.

Hannibal stood up, but Will stopped him. “I want to do it,” he said.

So Hannibal helped Will to his feet and kept his balance as Will took shovelfuls of the dirt and tossed them onto Winston’s body. His eyes were already red and swollen and there was nothing more to cry. The image of Winston curled up in the ground, paws tucked underneath, didn’t make him sob like he expected. Not even when his dog was under a thin pile of dirt, or half-submerged. Then the last tuft of fur disappeared. He continued to fill up the grave until it was even on the top, and packed down the soil with his hands. The ground looked brand new; never disturbed. But Will looked down at that place and knew Winston was there.

“Would you like to put a mark on this tree?” Hannibal asked. He hadn’t spoken in hours.

“No.” Will let Hannibal help him up as his eyes traveled up the bark of the tree and noticed how it no longer looked special to him. It was identical to every other tree in the woods, and he would probably never find it again. But if this was just like every other tree, that meant Winston was also under every single one. Will’s had only just scraped the iceberg of those millions of trees running up and down mountains and valleys as far as the eye could see, and Winston was under every single one.

Hannibal warmed up their coffee again and sat a glass in front of each of them at the dining table. But while he moved, Will’s attention was captured over Hannibal’s shoulder by the bamboo plant sitting in the window, basking in the sunlight. It had gotten a little cloudier, but some shards of light still hit the kitchen floor. Dust mites danced in their beams.

Will didn't feel like drinking. He cupped his hands around the mug to soak in the warmth between them. The difference in atmosphere without Winston in the house was striking. Something about it was emptier, the way the air falls flat after a storm. Will was in the middle of the ocean in a small boat of his own and everywhere he looked, the waves were gentle. He wanted a storm. He got nothing. Nature refused to be anything but peaceful.

Minutes passed, measured by sips of coffee and the change of numbers on a clock somewhere that meant nothing.

“When I die, you can eat me,” Will told him. His thumb traced over a rough edge in the mug.

Hannibal looked up at him, ears perked.

“I was thinking, if you did that to your last patient, or lover, or whatever, there's no guarantee I would be any different. And at first I figured that was just one more reason not to trust you. But then,” Will sighed, leaning his head on his knuckles. “I thought, so what?” he murmured. “It’s not the worst way to go.”

“Would I be present for your death?” Hannibal asked. It was a question Will wasn't really prepared for and he didn't know how to answer, so he didn't.

Instead he held the mug up to his nose and inhaled. The smell was more comforting than the caffeine itself. It blended in a strange mix with the air breathed from the man before him, and the way the light glinted off his patterned sweater. The inaudible hum of appliances. The audible hum of nature. Winston’s bark was somehow buried deep in it, and if Will listened hard enough, he knew he might hear an echo.

Hannibal got up from the table without a word and his footsteps faded into the living room. Then Will heard a click and piano notes fell from the sky. With Chopin’s tune dancing around them, Hannibal returned and took a seat again.

Will had to notice how similar Hannibal's eyes were to Winston’s. They were the same color, with the same trick of hiding their emotions behind their teeth.

“What was your plan for after this?” Will gestured in a circle to his house. “I mean, if I called the cops or kicked you out or you just didn't want to come back. Did you have a plan?”

“Nothing concrete.” Hannibal was gazing at the bamboo plant and its fragile, knife-like leaves sticking up around it. It might’ve been giving him an idea, or reminding him of something. It pointed in all different directions of where he might’ve gone. “Perhaps Montana. Or Michigan. In the future, if it was possible, I would have liked to make my way up to Canada.”

“I’ve never been to Montana,” Will muttered to himself. He thought of mountains, hills, heaps of snow on orange rocks and grassy valleys; a craggy terrain. “You know, there’s a beach in Washington called Cape Disappointment.”

“I didn’t know that.” The hint of a smile appeared on Hannibal’s mouth and he took another sip of his coffee.

Will smiled, too, but for a radically different reason. He had told Hannibal something Hannibal hadn’t known before. That was a foreign feeling. It tasted like sea-salt.

He glanced up and their eyes met. Hannibal never looked at him, always in. At least, as far as Will would let him go. And Hannibal’s eyes were tar and quick-sand at once. They wrapped their arms around Will and held him; softened his jaw, softened his skin, and consumed him.

“It’s a better idea to take my car,” Will said, nodding to the front door. “There’s more room in the back for my dogs.”

There was definitely a rare smile on Hannibal’s lips now. Will felt proud that he’d put it there. “How soon would you like to leave?” he asked.

“Immediately.”

It didn’t take Will long to pack up anything and everything he needed. Enough clothes to last a week, a few sweaters, a coat, scarves and gloves, his electronics, toiletries, and books. After twenty minutes he stood opposite his bed, looking at his duffel bag of stuff, a black body resting across his bare sheets. His whole life, reduced to a few necessities. Rather than degrading, it was renewing. His house was nothing but wood, in the end, and all the extra _things_ were nothing but accessories when it came down to it. Will exhaled a breath and shed that skin. He picked up his bag and pulled the strap over his shoulder.

Hannibal was in the living room with only one item in his hand to take. He held it out as Will came closer. It was the Chopin CD. “This will be a nice soundtrack,” he said.

Together they loaded as much dog food as Will had into the backseat and had all the dogs hop up into the hatchback. With Will’s bag in the backseat, there was nothing more to take. Hannibal offered to drive and Will didn’t mind, so he handed him the keys and closed the door behind him in the passenger’s seat.

Sitting in the car, listening to the dogs curling up and getting comfortable in the back, their gazes both went to the bamboo plant in Will’s kitchen window. Still a solitary guard, it seemed to hold its post over the entire house.

“Do you want to take it?” Hannibal asked.

Will shook his head. “No." So Hannibal glanced in the rearview mirror and then pulled away from the house, passing the kitchen window on their way. The bamboo plant peered out at them, branches reaching up to the sky as if waving goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is the first of a few different parts, so if you want to read more, go ahead and subscribe to the whole series :)


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